Woah. It's still here! hm.....
*thinks about reviving this blog*
...
maybe later.

"DEADS"

Outdoor war fun.

I dont really know why i feel so damn great.
My nails are dirty and dry, my face is irate, my hair needs cutting, my left ankle is swollen, my Sayart-something nerve is bruised, and i didnt really accomplish a lot today.

Funny i guess how the condition of the day can affect you -especially if youre experiencing it first hand.
Today was almost PERFECT. The sun was shining bright, the clouds offered perfect dim, and the WIND. oh, man the WIND.
Actually, i've been pretty emotional for the past week. -in a good way. i couldnt explain it, but i feel happy as hell and nothing could really change my mood.

Must have started with one thing. vacation. the thought of having time. TIME to spend as you like. Its such a valuable thing that ive taken for granted all too well before.
By the time i had the chance to get off from the ride home, i felt like a cursed kadaver thats been granted life again.

Appreciating all that the senses could muster for each second and feeling even better because of it.

True, time flies when youre having fun. But damn, if by accmumulated fun, you get this much emotional high for the price of a loss of the track of time, then screw it.

What exactly did i do that made me so damn happy? Nothing. Well, to be a little more specific, NOTHING SPECIAL.
There'd be too much personal reactions so i wont be giving anything specific.
Aww, did i spoil the climax? Heheh. Then i'll tells yah.
I've been LIVING.

I can say that since im doing things on my own, thinking for myself and im not restricted by time constraints, senseless morals, ignorant superiors and im not under any form of conformity.

Today i spent my time playing airsoft wargames with friends. Usually, there'd be a lot of little things that kept the mood a bit stressful and not really that enjoyable like the weather would be really hot then during the game, it'd start to rain. Then theres the shortage of ammunition raising tempers as some would get more than their share. New people are another thing. You dont instantly feel comfortable with new people around especially if they almost outnumber you. Other things would probably be the temperamental guns and the imbalance of the firepower between the usual teams -and the style of how each member plays.

Today was great. Everyone seemed pretty ready for the day, calmly arriving one by one and flowing pretty well inside a small room. Everyones a friend and there'd be no little thing that could make the most sensitive person's eyebrow twitch a measly bit.

Although there were still some temperamental guns. I guess that part people got used to.
We got to the game site without anybody reserving anything for themselves. No doubt that the weather would be friendly as there was very little clouds and although the sun was shining bright, there were pretty strong christmas winds out.

We all sat down and prepared the things while the others layed out the drinks. The scene was picnicky and with the site pretty secluded noone could care less about the world.

The game went on smoothly and lightly since noone was much in the mood for a usual game in the grass where the environment was pretty stressful. It was at first but then the following games were played in skirmish with the empty street and grassy sidewalks used.

Typical adrenaline rush, but now its lighter since theres no competition between friends and everyones a sport.
I guess its another version of frolicking in the park with friends or playing street games when you were a kid.

A deeper sense of appreciation though, i guess lead to my noticing the weather today.
Even if youre desperately trying not to get shot and lose a game, nothing beats comfortably resting against grass, sun on your face, wind in your hair (yes, you can feel it through the mask) and being surrounded by friends in a time when you couldnt care less about the world.

for images click here

Fillin' the blank.

A lot of interesting things actually happened to me while i was gone.
I wanted to post about a lot of things like the people i 'meet' during the commute, continuation of my ipod story, places i went to, things i've learned, different images from my phone... etc.
Well, its 00:20 of the 23rd of december and im feeling great enough to at least try and write what i can.
I'd like to start in chronological order, but i shouldnt really pass out on this one while im still in the spurr of the moment.

-next post, please.

b.a.k.

"well, well, look who decided to blog again."
Heheh. i guess i owe some more people an appology for wasting even more of their time for going to my blog and not getting anything new at least.

Sorry.

Initially i was so busy with school and i was failing and getting used to catching up. i was at the point where all my spare time would be spent sleeping or resting rather than doing homework or something productive. This was so because im a crammer and i always save things for the last second before i do it. Wasnt worth it. i failed a couple of subjects and couldnt enroll for a few more since the ones i failed were prerequisites for other subjects. Just like that, i earned myself another year in school before i graduate.

When i didnt have time constrains though, i still didnt blog. This i guess was a since i didnt really have a need to do so. It was already some time since i stopped and i didnt think whats left of the people who DID check my blog would mind that i spend my time doing something else.

That aside, i hope i can post some of my experiences from the time i was gone. I really should've written it down. its so much more easy to post when youre still feeling the spurr of the moment.

i hope i can get to write them down properly and at least entertain a couple of people.


-update-
ooh, i forgot, my computer broke down, too. expect a post on that one.

WOOHOO. ITS BEEN A WHILE.

Turbo.

*picks one pending post*

Ah, yes, this one.. never did thought of how to write this formally..

Whatever.

My video card broke down some time ago. Turns out its fan broke down without my knowing. (ofcourse you wont notice until you see the performance change or actually stare at the thing)

I noticed it only when I played games and it constantly made strange lines on the screen and eventually hung just five minutes into the game.

So I replaced the fan (which was expensive, bytheway) and continued playing only to find out that it wasn’t working well even with the new fan.

I tried everything. I tried lube, cleaning, aligning, but nothing worked. Even with the new fan the videocard was still producing enough heat to deter most hands.

Troubled, I brought out the big guns and took my mom’s desk fan ( a gift from the Christmas seasons), removed all my computer’s panels and played away.

But that didn’t stop the heat from threatening the life of my videocard even when I was just checking my mail. And the fan was troublesome, constantly getting in the way of my seating, hearing and something in the back of my head.

I have no idea what I was thinking, but in one night I had made an air duct out of paper and masking tape. Yes, not the best material for something to put inside your computer, but it was the most available thing and I’m too lazy to go to some shop and get/make a fiberglass version. Besides, it was in a particularly open area of the pc with the least amount of things that can combust.

Its nothing great, in fact, it looks like a piece of trash wedged under my videocard.

But it does the job well.

What it does is since I found out that the fan of the video card took in air from the sides of the heat sink and then forced it away through the center of the fan, I stuck one end of the air duct right there on the outlet hole and as smoothly as I could, bend it towards the rear of my pc, taking into consideration the increasing size.

Why would it have increasing size? For one thing, so I can stick it to an 80mm fan waiting at the end of the casing.

This has its own power, so what happens is that it sucks the air directly from the videocard and blows it out. As the air duct is partially air tight, the spin of the 80mm fan creates a vacuum which requires air from the other end, the videocard fan.

This then makes the videocard fan spin way faster than usual.

Hm… let me try this.

Since at a certain rpm the vidcard fan produces x amounts of exhaust pressure at normal ambient pressure and normal friction, creating a vacuum will take away ambient pressure and create negative pressure…

(lets see… I know this in my head, I just cant put it into words…)

Now the vidcard fan, having power of its own, can be considered frictionless.

Then uh… creating more vacuum than the vcfan can fill up will force it to make air flow through it’s blades and spin it faster.

But since at a certain rpm the vcfan produces x amounts of pressure at normal ambient pressure, forcibly making negative pressure will make the vcfan spin at a higher rpm, increasing output by raising x accordingly and efficiently since there is no longer ambient pressure, more power (power of the 80mm fan) and a fan with less froction.

Didn’t get it? Me neither.

I suck at explaining. Just take my word for it, the system works and theres a plus factor somewhere in there. Sort of how a turbo works.

Don’t know how it works? “Google is your friend”.

Search “how a turbo works” or “mechanical spooling” or something.

..

…

*looks around scratching head*

…

Look, I have pictures!

So as you can see here, The air, indicated by the red arrows, get sucked in through the videocard's heatsink by the videocard's fan which is then blown out into the air duct where all the air inside is being sucked out by another fan at the rear area of the computer casing.
simple enough. ... i really have to make a better version. this one looks a lot like trash.

Inital D!
(for those wondering why im such a car fan but never writes anything about cars)

Oh, yeah!
This month, Animax will start showing Initial D the animated series.



Initial D is an anime about the travels of one Takumi Fujiwara, a japanese kid who was fortunate enough to have been taught by his father to drive when he was only 11 years old.

Although, to him, it wasn't considered fun since the purpose of teaching him to drive was for him to take his father's work of delivering tofu from their shop to a hotel atop Mt. Akina.

Initially waking up at 4a.m., making the delivery and getting home just in time to prepare for school, 7 years of this back and forth work has enabled him to memorize the road as well as his car and figure out a faster driving style (drifting; the 'D' in "Initial D") so he can consequently get more sleep.

He's not a fan of cars, nor does he understand its mechanics or why people are so crazy about it.
To him, driving is just work and a means to get somewhere.
His friends ignorant of his work and basing his litteracy on this fact, go around treating him as if he was ignorant about driving.

When a nearby racing team, the Akagi Red Suns, lead by Ryosuke (Driving anRX-7FC) and Keisuke (RX-7FD3s) Takahashi, take interest in conquering the vicinity, they challenge the Akina Speedstars (the local racing team lead by a couple of Takumi's friends) in a "friendly" match, the Speedstars show their true potential which is, in fact, not much.
This makes team leader Ryosuke Takahashi uninterested and tells the other team members to simply practice.

Around 4 a.m. and practice is almost over. They go down the mountain and try racing against each other on the way down. Keisuke, second best in the team, pulls away from the others, but is caught on by an unfamiliar car.. A 1986 Toyota Corolla "Trueno" (AE86 body name.)

Agitated, Kesiuke turns up the speed and is surprised when he finds that he's not capable of pulling away. He finds himself braking for a tightened 'S' curve and is overtaken by the Corolla.
Thinking he knows better, he waits for the Corolla to lose control as it took the corner too fast.
He is then dumbstruck when the Corolla suddenly does a quick "Intertia" drift and leaves him in the dust.

Keisuke spins out from being shocked at the sight of such skillful driving and the fact that he lost to an old car, much weaker than his. He then swears to find out who exactly was that person who he then dubbed, "The Ghost of Akina"

After starting a wide ranged search, and triggering eyebrow raising rumors along the way, Takumi is discovered to be the one who had defeated Keisuke that night.
Takumi is then chalenged to a downhill race on his home course.


Takumi insists that he is not interested in racing and we would rather be left alone,
but when his father, Bunta (the best racer in his time; initially thought to have been the one driving the corolla that beat Keisuke) hears the news and finds out that Takumi needs the car for a date the following monday, finds a way to bribe Takumi into racing and getting a full tank of gas if he wins the race.

There is amazement as he shows his friends for the first time his driving skills, and takes the win against the now defaced Keisuke and his RX-7.
After this, he attracts more challenges and finds himself slowly turning into an enthusiastic street racer.

This is Initial D's story of a japanese boy's life and the world of mountain drifting.
Please, dont beleive the unanimated Initial D! movie.
While you're at it, dont trust anything Initial D aside from the animated series and the models. Thats where it started and thats the only area they thought of properly.
The arcade game sucks, the PC game sucks, the film was WAY out of line, and those who believe it is stupid.


Please, at least trust me on this one and dont go pretending you know everything about initial d when you've only watched the movie or just a few episodes.
-oh and dont go trying out these things unless you are supervised by real racers.
if you want to try it safely and be taught by seasoned professionals, try Slalom racing.
Its a pretty good entry level race and the rules make sure its a fair game.
In the mean time, don't do anything stupid, drive responsibly, treat your car right, and at least watch the entire Initial D series before you go around bragging you know what its all about.

Flavalicious

So its not something new, I’m sure you'd have either tried it, or have read countless blogs with the same content.

Close-up has released a limited line of toothpaste with unique flavours. They’re called close-up "Flavalicious" and they come with a variety of flavours.

One in particular was "Choco Loco".

Now, when i heard it on the radio, I immediately asked, "can you believe these people? Choco loco? What the hell? That would make your gums hurt so bad..”

Friends agreed, it was a bad idea.

Wait for it, wait for iiit…

*BUT*

, as fate would have it, curiosity (and as the situation would tell) would get the better of me when I went to buy groceries with my mom, (there we go) and saw those little brown boxes of toothpaste.

“Mom, lets buy this!”

“What for?”

“Well, we don’t have toothpaste anyway and I don’t mind trying this out.”

“ O.K., but you’d better finish that off.”

“Oki.”

I went ahead and had a go at it the next morning and didn’t really have anything to say. It was particularly minty.

There was chocolate flavouring and a lot of mint in that speckled off white paste, mostly mint.

It doesn’t feel anything more than when you want to say, “ooh, I’m tying out a new product. Cool.”

Its more of a feeling of neutral satisfaction.

“its not great, but at least it does its job well.”

Few weeks go by and I start noticing the flavour changing.

Its similar to the Head and Shoulders’ menthol shampoo where you try it out and love the freezing/burning sensation on your head, but then your body gets used to it.

That time, was, I think the height of the product where I already know that it works

But now I’m finding more things about it.

It was weird wherein its something you can think about when your brain is still trying to adjust in the morning.

See, when the feeling of the mint has already done its part, you start getting a new input where you’re feeling and tasting this light, tasty, chocolaty froth in your mouth, and that just triggers more of your brain that doesn’t exactly know what to do.

It reminds me of this time when I was in a hotel gig thing, it was fine dining and I particularly liked the dessert. It was some sort of French chocolate cake. There was no bread, but the cake was made entirely of chocolate. Not purely, but it had different types. The inside was this moist, almost creamy, consistent light chocolaty fudge and the icing was an even lighter, almost powdery spread.

In fact, it was so light that the chocolate flavour was just enough. Just enough.

I don’t really know how they did it. They must have used an egg beater and run it at 30,000rpms or something.

All I know is that the cake was good and even though it was made out of chocolate, it was well made and really fine.

So I never really knew how to react when all of a sudden the mint is all gone and I’m tasting this memory inducing froth.

I’m going like,

“oh, man this tastes so good. “

“Wait, It tastes like food. I wonder if it was really meant for brushing teeth?”

“Eh, it works fine.”

“So why- what? but I shouldn’t be brushing my teeth with food. Especially not chocolate.”

“Its not chocolate.”

“But I want to eat it. It tastes like chocolate.”

“Dude, its toothpaste. You don’t eat toothpaste unless you’re below 12.”

“But its not toothpaste. It doesn’t taste like it. .. at least now it doesn’t”

Yes, I always had this mental argument with myself in the morning.

I guess that’s why they call it choco loco.

Its something you forget though, which is nice since you can always argue with yourself in the morning and not remember what happened the day before.

(Partially hoping for a different result.)

I never really went crazy enough to eat the paste.

I guess the chances of that happening are slimmer especially now that the tube ran out.

I can’t believe it. From a time where I closed my mind and labeled “bad idea” on it to missing it in just a short month and a half.

Now I’m back to my old tube of paste.

There’s the mint, there’s the fresh feeling, there’s the boring.

The people at close-up really deserve a good pat on the back they made at least one good product and gave it enough advertising to reinforce people to buy it and then made it so that they make it for a limited time so people will remember their products as fresh and nice and not something they got used and tired of.

(You just have to appreciate those things…

Hm… I wonder if those things have an expiration date…

Yes, yes, tomorrow is Sunday.

Tomorrow I will buy three tubes, one I will use, one I will use after that, and one I will devour while watching t.v. tomorrow.

*rubs hands together*)