Shocking twist - In a good way

its been quite some time since I last took an opportunity to go cycling around the park. After 3 weeks of almost zero exercise, I thought it'd be good to head out and refresh myself a little while, away from the computer. Headed off to Pasir Ris park in the early morning, and it seems like its an elderly haven over there. Almost 70% of the people I see there working out were senior citizens. It's already school holidays but perhaps the children are too coped up with playing their iPad / iPhone I guess... I mean that's a perfectly normal thinking since I've been seeing small kids playing on iPad on trains and on everywhere else... The apple generation is invading too fast! It's still an eye-opener for me since it's really rare that I get to see the quiet peaceful park with the others merely working out or having "qigong" lessons. Since most of the time I'd head there only in the afternoon, it's a rare sight that I'd would have saw. Went a few rounds through Pasir Ris Park and it was roughly the same as I last took notice of it, about 10 months ago. And the nostalgic feel to head down to Elias Mac to have breakfast. Even the cashier aunties were still the same ever since we took that as a study area for last few years.

Headed down to Expo over the weekend, had been only there last week for AFA and no traces had remained after the week. Kinda expected yea. Read somewhere too that Suntec Convention Hall is going for a 6month renovation from Oct 2012. Which means AFA next year would most probably shift back to Suntec, which would be a better place IMO. The Popular bookfair only took up half of a hall this time round, making it more packed than ever. Headed straight to the chinese novel section and was browsing through the taiwan books, mainly from 九把刀 which had some rather interesting books under him. Was actually quite tempted to get a couple of books there but since I do know that I'll most probably delay the reading of the books so maybe next time then I'll get it. And as usual the assessment book section was flooded with parents, scrambling for the appropriate books. Poor kids... It's only the start of the holidays... I do fear too, since it's been like a year since I last studied. Got to refresh myself abit next year before school starts in 2014!

And it's finally out of MISB condition! Quite a lot of parts from a nendoroid, took me quite long to fix it up too, the cannon is really heavy for her hands!

And just a couple of rather significant updates on some of the current ongoing series:

SAO is picking up the pace, to the possible end at 25/26 episode. I don't really see the possibility of SAO to head into the Gun Gale arc so it'll most possibly end on a high note together with ALO. A couple of episodes back, SAO was pretty dry, with just some tsun going on with Leafa / Sugu, and a little too much focus on character curves. It wasn't that bad with Asuna but with Leafa... the animators sure got their eyes on them. The latest episode of SAO was high on tempo, with Kirito showing off his dual wield skill again in ALO and easily defeating a so called "strongest player" in ALO. Now it just seems that Kirito is a hacker. In fact, no one ever doubts or asks him about his origins. I do thought that at least Kirito, the name, would be known from completing SAO or that by his sudden appearance and over the scale stats, no one ever questions him about it. A loophole perhaps? Leaving the unanswered questions aside, Kirito does seem like a hacker doesn't he. Someone who has crazy stats, crazy amount of gold, crazy running and rather fast flying speed, and even a portable GM-like AI to boot. Now that's what I call game imbalance. Seems like Asuna is out of the cage too so I guess it wouldn't be long before the two meet again but for a proper reunion, I'll vouch on the 24-26th.

Chu2Koi had always seem to me as a light-hearted, slice-of-life anime that doesn't really need a proper storyline to bring out the humour and randomness, but the lastest episode shattered this hypothesis, in a good light. I was honestly tricked by its trailer to e expecting the series to be a cool action supernatural type of show but when it turns out to be a "nichijou" type of series, I actually didn't mind it being that way since it's still funny to see the antics of the various weird characters in the series itself. Turning the table around to input a dark and sad element into the series was a good move and a surprising twist. I did expect that the old house that Rikka was running to see was already gone, (it was pretty obvious), but for the series to pull out the post-feeling experience into Rikka, I'd give kudos to that. Having the cheerful music end at the same time as Rikka being exposed to the bare truth and then tearing up before trying to "blast reality" again, it makes me wonder if it was the trauma of her father's death that led to her contracting this syndrome or was it plainly her trying to run away from the truth and thus had used words similar to avoiding reality. Now that adds a darker and mysterious atmosphere into the series and seeing how Rikka was emotionally damaged by that, I do feel for her too. Awesome turn of events and one of the more promising one as of yet.

and here's one of the more touching OST of God Eater Burst: