Mayhem-Online

Archive for January, 2008

Well I’m finally getting around to upgrading the PC. Its over 4 years old now and I don’t really have the money to spend on a new machine, so if I can extend its life a little bit further than that’s a better option for me now. I’m upgrading the memory and the graphics card as well as replacing my DVD burner. It burns fine its just that once you hit the eject button it keeps popping the DVD/CD out of the tray and causing it to jam. By the time I manage to get the thing to pop out normally, its completely scratched It wasn’t really a major problem for me since it doesn’t happen all the time but since they’re fairly cheap these days I figured why not. I’m still waiting to hear back from the company who I bought it off of to make sure they’ve booked me in. They said its a 24 hour turn around but since I get home from work after they’ve closed I’ve only got a couple of days as options to get it in (Thursday as its late-night shopping here and Saturday). Anyway hopefully it will not only improve on performance but keep my PC going for another couple of years…

On Saturday we went and saw the production of “Miss Saigon”. I haven’t been to a stage musical since “Phantom of the Opera” a few years ago so it was a nice change. The cast was amazing, even though we had the understudy for the leading character of Kim, she was brilliant none the less. The guy who played John had such a great baritone type voice that just caused my knees to quiver! I would say that John and Kim had the best voices in the performance followed by the woman who played Ellen. The guy who played Chris was okay, his voice was still good but not quite the same level as the other two. My favourite character would of course have to be the Engineer – the guy who played him was very good at being sleazy lol! He just cracked us all up though and he got a huge applause when he came out at the end of the performance. Of course the one who got the biggest applause was the boy who played Tam – he was so cute! It amazed us just how he was able to stand there while everyone was singing and making noises about him, but he did a great job. I noticed a couple of times they put into the performance a piece of paper for him to draw on while they sang their number, it worked well and kept him occupied a bit while they performed beside him. I’m definitely glad I got to see the show

Playtime is over now. Today was my first day back at work. Luckily the boss was off sick (well not so lucky for him) so I had a nice relaxing day to ease back into work. Not that its extremely busy at this time of the year but it will be soon.

For me, 2008 is going to be the “Year of Organising” – in other words, I want to be more organised! There are times at work where it can just get pretty hectic, and having a good organised desk and desktop would make those particular times a heck of a lot easier. I also want to become more organised at home too and to try and keep on top of things rather than just let them simmer. I’ve bought myself a diary which has one day per page. I can use this to write down the things I need to get done at home on that day, as well as notes for anything I need to do at work. I’m also using it to keep track of things like bills and when I have other important things to pay like hosting for my websites lol. The problem is that I used a diary once before, actually many times before, but usually forgot all about them in the end. However I only used them to write in appointments (which I don’t have a lot of and usually put them into my electronic diary at work) whereas this particular diary is more for notes and ‘plans’ so that I have some forward thinking. I’ve set down a list of things to do tonight even such as “Burn off DVDs to clear up HDD”,”Write a post on MOL” and “Play X-Box for 1.5 hours (max)”. Doesn’t seem like a lot but then I get home at 6, have dinner and watch the news and then after that is when I begin all my other stuff such as checking e-mails and my websites. See its taken two and a half hours just to get to this point where I’m now typing up a post on this site! But I’m going to stick to the plan. I’ve already written up tomorrow nights plan and will be putting in a few dates such as when Crisis Core comes out in the US and when I have to renew one of my domain names (important stuff!)

I’m not too fussed about work this year. I wasn’t keen on returning but I need the money to pay the bills so I had to go back. This year I’m just going to do what I’m told to do and not bother making any fusses. There’s no point as its one of those years where everything is in transition. Some of our units will disappear from our department and move to a new shared services centre. Schools are in a ‘holding pattern’ at the moment as most main events for them will occur in 2009 (such as merging schools) so basically things will be a bit all over the place this year and things like my own reclassification will be the last thing on their mind… again…

Anyway, nothing has changed so I guess that’s a good thing in some way. Everyone is still doing what they do and the job hasn’t changed nor the people around me. No fuss this year… no fuss.

Well I’ve finished this post.. guess it must be time to play the X-box!

Out of all the FF characters, Cloud Strife is probably my most favourite of all. Although I have to say that Final Fantasy XII is probably the better game in the entire FF series, he is still my favourite character through and through. So of course it’s only natural that I have an action figure of him I’ve already shown images of him before on the website, but this time there’s something different. You see not long ago they began re-releasing FFVII figures in their original format – in other words, based on the original game and not on the Advent Children movie. Using the same style as they did with making the AC version, the original version is our true spiky-haired hero with his baggy pants, brown boots and of course his massive buster sword. I couldn’t resist when I saw they had it out so I pretty well ordered it as soon as I saw it. So I took a photo of the new figure as well as a photo with the AC version standing next to it. I don’t know if its because Cloud is standing astride but the AC version looks quite small compared to the original version! They both look good anyway. The other characters they released in their original format were Tifa and Aerith, neither of which I’m interested in getting (I only get male figures ) Anyway so that about wraps up all the FFVII figures I have in collection. Unless they bring out an original version of Vincent then there’s not likely to be anymore that I’ll buy. Of course there IS a new ‘original’ Cloud Strife figure being released around April this year – its a re-release of the original statue version of Cloud on his Hardy Daytona motorcycle. The ‘new-old’ version looks awesome and its a heck of a lot cheaper in terms of price compared to the other Cloud and Sephiroth figures they’re releasing this month. You can check out the Cloud Strife on his Hardy Daytona figure here.

I’ve now got Squall Leonhart on order and its currently being shipped over to me as I type this. This will basically complete my collection of my favourite FF male characters. The list so far is:

• Cloud Strife (AC Version) – Final Fantasy VII
• Cloud Strife (Original Version) – Final Fantasy VII
• Sephiroth (AC Version) – Final Fantasy VII
• Vincent Valentine (AC Version) – Final Fantasy VII
• Kadaj – Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
• Reno (AC Version) – Final Fantasy VII
• Tidus – Final Fantasy X
• Squall Leonhart (in transit!) – Final Fantasy VIII

There are action figures of the characters from Final Fantasy XII but the only one I really like is the Judge Gabranth figure. I do like Balthier and Vaan is okay but I’m not all that keen on getting either of those. Judge Gabranth is hard to get now as it was pretty popular, and currently only one store here has it and they are not selling it as a seperate item (you have to buy all four of the figures released from that game).

Now come to think of it, there would be a couple of other FF characters I would buy but I’m doubting they’ll release versions of them – Cloud Strife (again) from Kingdom Hearts (in KHII he’s just in his AC gear) and Squall ‘Leon’ Leonhart from KH (yes he’s the same version, just with longer hair though). You can buy a small statuette of Cloud from the original KH game but I reckon it’d be better to have a proper action figure to match with the rest of them

And on a side note – like the new look? Decided on a change. Actually I chose the theme to kind of match my little avatar figure there. Yes that’s me… kind of. I threw it together today in about half an hour lol. Basically the look on my face is “Wtf?” or as the line is at the top of the page “What are you rambling on about now?”