At long last, 2 excruciating weeks have passed and I'm finally out of there for 3 days! It's true when they say that the army sucks, it really is. Wake up at 5 am every day, get ready and fall in by 5.45, eat breakfast at 6, and suffer the rest of the day.

I'm pretty sure I'll look forward to every single book out of the week. Massive screws to those weeks that I'm stuck in camp. Tekong is really a god-forsaken place. I half expected cars to be flying when I came out.

And Jerry, if you ever see this, I'll reiterate - Endure! No tough training lasts forever, and all hardships have an end. So when it gets too much, just grit your teeth, remember the word 'Endure', and we'll get together and laugh about all this stupid stuff in the future over a drink or something.

And that's a definite promise.

As thought by Zephiris @ 8:45:00 AM .

Effective tomorrow, the owner of zephiris.blogspot.com will be on a cold turkey in the wonderful wonderful army. Access to Internet is, to all possible means, impossible - which means there will be no updates, and no trace of me left anywhere on the Internet.

Reminds me of attachment - get up in the morning at 7am like a robot, mechanically change, eat breakfast and take the MRT to work. Stare at all the automatons on the train, depressed in the knowledge that you have become a drone to society with no individuality. You have just become a part of the Horde that works robotically to keep our stinking country afloat.

I felt emotionally dead for the majority of the time - it was the same boring routine every week for 4 months in a row. There was nothing new, nothing happening, show up to work, doodle around until knock-off. I'm sure the army will be no different.

I'm not looking forward to it, but its a troublesome obligation that I have to carry out. Curse these irritating obligations. And sayonara, freedom.

As thought by Zephiris @ 10:34:00 AM .

I have no words with which to describe Da Capo.

It's -yet another- hentai harem anime that focuses on 1 lucky bastard guy and 7 girls. Hey, it trumps Shuffle! by 1 more girl! Suck on dat, Shuffle!

Running over the cast of characters real quick, we have -the sister-, -the childhood friend-, -the senior in school-, -the classmate-, -the junior in school-, -the nonhuman- and -the perfect girl who can do everything-. And the human doormat, a.k.a. the main character.

The whole thing is relatively predictable, all 7 are either consciously (or unconsciously) vying for the guy. The absolute kicker? Girl of choice - the sister.

Oh. My. Gawd. Even if they're not blood related, isn't it *(%&ing INCEST?!?!??! The idiot who allowed this to happen should be dragged outside and executed. Immediately. In case you haven't noticed, incest offends me. A lot.

Grats to the idiot producer, you just sank the entire storyline. I'm scarred for life now. When the overall storyline goes like "Hey, I just noticed, we're not blood related even though we're brother and sister", my jaw hit the ground in disbelief. There are so many other BETTER choices, and they go with this ungodly unrealistic scenario...I take my hat off to them.

Da Capo is something that showed a bit of promise, but I swear, Nemu destroyed the whole plot single-handedly. It's worth watching only for the anticipation of who the doormat will choose, but the ending destroyed the show.

And while I'm writing, although it's 1 day early, a happy 21st birthday to Song Boon. No idea if you'll see this, but what the hey, at least I know I wrote it.

As thought by Zephiris @ 7:15:00 PM .

Anime is a double-edged blade. It gives me an enjoyable story to crunch my thoughts on, and takes me farrrr away from the reality that I live in. During those hours I feel like I'm alleviated from all my problems, but here comes the kicker: If its TOO good, I end up being absorbed into the show itself. I dono if there's a medical term for it, but I tend to call it 'anime withdrawal'.

It happens when a show is simply so interesting that you're horribly sad when it ends, and you lament that there'll be no more episodes. I've probably said this before, but the first time I got cut by the blade was when I was watching Ah! My Goddess.

(rolls eyes) The depression that followed was probably for months on end.

Well, at least I just finished a new series (Karin). I swear, these romantic comedies tend to hook an idiot like me in every time. While it doesn't go anywhere new, and the clueless male lead is quite a bit of an eyesore to me, I had to brutally yank myself from the PC so that I wouldn't finish watching it in a single day.

I took 2 days instead. Yes, I know it doesn't sound like much of a brutal yank, but it's quite a record considering my patience. And yes, I know it sounds ridiculously stupid, but I had to quite firmly disassociate myself from the show.

By disassociating, I mean 'remind myself over and over - Do Not Get Too Interested, Lest Ye Breakdown Again.'

Most of the time I don't really obsess THAT much over 1 particular anime ('cept for AMG, but that's because I got cut the first time unwittingly), but Karin came close, as have a few others. Part of my saving grace came from the fact that I reaaaalllyyy didn't like the male lead in Karin. It's like they focused on Karin's character design and decided to cut a LOT of corners on the male lead's character design.

You know there's something up when the female character is way better drawn than the guy, who looks like he was drawn by a 10 year old.

At least I'm done with that, and with a minimal of withdrawal symptoms. It sure sounds like a vicious cycle. I seek shows to entertain myself with, I get cut by the double edged blade if I'm not careful, I go into depression mode, recover after a couple of months, and go back to looking for The Next Best Show to cut myself with.

I sure am bored.

As thought by Zephiris @ 9:04:00 PM .

Heh, today wasnt a total disappointment. The cosplay exhibition proved to be a good place to get a couple of laughs. The Gundam Seed Destiny skits were absolutely terrible though. The applause (get this: the team rating) was like bird's droppings. I wasn't very impressed. On the contrary I was wishing someone would take a shotgun and put it to my head.

Although most costumes were pretty well made, just that Singaporeans dont have the right body build to do the costume justice. Imagine a plump Saber or Tohsaka Rin...OH DEAR GAWD. THE HORROR.

I also got an insight into how advanced the Singaporean anime community is. i.e. Not Very Advanced. You're lagging if you're still doing Bleach or Naruto, or Gundam Seed Destiny (Gundam Seed came out in 2002. 4 years later and you're STILL DOING IT? Not in the least impressive.)

I bagged a couple of pictures on my camera phone. I'll look into transferring it into my PC. Hopefully the image quality isnt TOO bad.

As thought by Zephiris @ 7:57:00 PM .

Came across a most interesting event that the Singapore Cosplay Club is planning to hold - a cosplay event over at Downtown East at 1pm this coming Sunday. I think I'll pop over to see if there's anything interesting over there...although I have a pretty low opinion of cosplayers that actually look anything like the real character. (i.e. close to zero.)

Nonetheless, if anyone catches this message before Sunday and wants to go, if you look hard enough you might find me there too! And no. I'm not participating. I'm going there to (probably) laugh my azz off.

As thought by Zephiris @ 9:31:00 AM .

A few minutes ago, a thought happened to cross my mind. It went along the lines of 'Ah, how long the road I've travelled.'

While I've only existed on this planet for a measly 20 years, at times when it comes to the anime world, I feel like an old man. Anime. The thing that I'm so absorbed in, and yet I think that the majority of people don't really give a damn about it in Singapore, or at least give it as much attention as I do. According to my estimations, I started on this......hobby, you could call, about 7 years ago. I was still an idiot kid in primary school. But mark me, my interest in anime has never changed even after 7 long years. That's almost half my life spent on anime.

While people can happily chatter about football, about Beckham, about Jay Zhou, about FIR / SHE, I feel like a total outcast. I perceive myself as the odd individual. They talk about the latest albums, the latest songs, the latest football upsets. Me? I'd know the seiyuus (read: voice actors).

Example of case in point:

Ayako Kawasumi - Saber (Fate Stay Night), Lafiel (Crest/Banner of the Stars), Morgan Le Fay (Ah! My Goddess), Aoi Sakuraba (Ai Yori Aoshi), Mahoro (Mahoromatic), Elie (Rave), Yoshida Kazumi (Shakugan no Shana), etc.

I'm sure you get the picture. Having clocked close to (or surpassing) 200 different anime (ridiculously troublesome to count), I'm a virtual walking encyclopaedia on most shows. While I won't admit to being as prodigiously smart as to memorize every single role that a seiyuu has ever done, I will admit to being able to memorize a show's content and storyline.

As such, when someone says 'Hey, recommend me something', I flip through that virtual library in my mind and start picking out a suitable one, ranging from -fanservice amounts-, -genre- and -overall storyline-.

I guess one could say that anime is my life. Just as people my age listen to whatever Taiwanese band or singer is popular right now, I listen to Japanese songs. It's different from J-pop though. It usually involves the Original Soundtrack and OP/ED of a series.

It's not all bad though. In exchange for feeling like a total outcast every time my peers start talking about football/taiwanese pop, I get to have a very good grasp of Japanese despite not taking formal lessons. Although at times I wonder if it was worth it......nah. It was worth it. Screw all of you guys. I consider myself unique, and not the mindless drones that you people seem to be.


Now that I've exhausted the possibilities of this subject...which brings me to my next thought, cookie to you if you can guess where it's from. The quote is - 'What is love that binds mortals beyond death? '

For all you non-bachelors reading, good for you. I have no idea exactly what your concepts of love are, but I'd imagine that its good enough for you. No offense intended. I reaaallly have no concept of what you guys think love is. I guess for me it'd be someone who could accept and appreciate anime as well as I do, and not have anything to say about me being the lazy slob that I am. =p

This next thought is intensely private, but it's been gnawing at me for so long that I'll finally put it to writing.

When I see couples (read: Jerry, Gregory, nothing personal.) I tend to wonder: What exactly is it that makes their girlfriends stick to them? The realists today usually tend to state that females today tend to look for financial security, yada yada yada...basically, material benefits. I concluded that it was not relevant to the subject at hand, since both are not working and thus cannot offer much in the way of financial support.

What then, is keeping their relationship together? If someone told me they'd found true love at the age of 20, I'd snigger at them. I swear. What defines this 'true love'? What defines 'love', for that matter? Then the strange thought occured to me - 'Wanting to stay together'.

Why? I know not. But it sure makes sense according to all the trashy drama serials they show on TV. Personally, I don't understand it, since I dont really believe in what the TV has to say. Are females around this age more prone to just spontaneously liking someone? Any females care to enlighten me on this? Again, I mean no offence to anyone, but I'm just curious, because I cannot for the life of me imagine WHY a girl would agree to hang out with a guy when he is totally unable to give anything other than a few years of his time.

It still continues to gnaw at me to this day. I'll probably never be able to find an answer, because I'd imagine the two females in question would be too embarrassed to answer...correction. One would hit me as well, as a bonus, I believe.

It's been a while since I've written this much, but I'm glad to have gotten so many thoughts out of my head. Come what may (flames especially), but it's a great load off my shoulders to express soooo many of my questions about the great game of life that we play (and continue to play). My request still stands...I'd like some input on the topics I've written on, especially on those where I asked for female opinion.

As thought by Zephiris @ 8:22:00 PM .