yay..my laptop crashed on me first thing monday morning. great. cant even boot now...and it's only like 4 months old. so now using my roomie's microscopic netbook to type...and the keyboard is so small that i keep pressing the wrong buttons. wonder how he survive when his fingers are longer than mine!!

anyway, jap listening was a DISASTER. the people spoke like they were rushing for their train la. somemore, the questions were not printed, so listening to a whole chunk of words spoken like a GPMG just got worse coz you don't know WHAT to remember or note. then you have to try to get all the questions down also. and there are no options! just put O(correct) or X(wrong). oh well, it's over now.

went to asiasoft's office on sat. this is the first time i get to beta test a game! and tour the office. 3 of us (shin, hw) got to play Aran on three lappies on their test server which has only 3 channels! and it was really funny meeting GMs all over the place. they would say hi and buff us..haha. we also got 10,000,000 maple points to spend in the cash shop! i went on a shopping spree in the cash shop. felt very shuang although we cannot keep the stuff, because it's only the test server account =x

the whole atmosphere in the office was very relaxed. i wonder if it's coz it's saturday. we got to meet the marketing people, game developers, and one guy whom I suspect was a GM. didn't meet other GMs coz they were like from another dept, and apparently that means we don't see them. but, we got to see GMs fighting horntail! we went into this room, with some of the staff gathered around, and there was like a big projector screen and we could watch horntail in action. haha. i nv fought that boss before. will probably die halfway through anyway. it was really fun, and they were really nice to us. they even bought food and drinks for the 3 of us. haha. we got goodie bags too! i won't mind working in asiasoft next time. would be quite interesting i think. anyway, here are some photos:

my aran character in the test server!

the aran job is extremely different from previous maplestory characters. ever played street fighter? or bleach: soul carnival? well aran works on the system of combos. your normal attack is your bread and butter, and in first job you get to chain two hits together (Double Attack) for higher range, more damage and up to TWELVE monsters. yup. mobbing at 1st job!

the polearm combo skill, when learnt, gives you bonuses when u start racking up hits, or combos. and the combo counter will be displayed. and, well, you get polearm booster at first job.


2nd job gives you these two skills by default. yup, the unique part about aran is, for the first and second job, you only get part of your skills, and you need to do quests to get the rest of your skills! triple attack chains 3 hits together for flashier attacks, and of coz higher range and damage. hits 12 mobs still though. body pressure is like power guard but better, with higher damage given to the monster and a chance to render the monster useless for some time. i think it means the monster won't cast skills on you.

flashy aran skills! this is from 3rd job. the wolves (bottom) look damn cool. in case you were wondering, when u reach a certain number of combos, like 30, 100 etc, you can press a certain key combination to unleash powerful skills and release your combo counter. the wolf skill needs 100 combos to work and is very damaging.






the bear (blue)! you get this in 4th job, after chaining 4 hits together and u get imba range, like almost half the screen! for some reason the bear looks damn comical to me! always feel like laughing after seeing it come out to make a swipe. but it's so powerful as it can be unleashed in 4 hits, without the need to charge up combos.


this, if i'm not wrong, is aran class's full screen tech! yup, a warrior class with a full screen tech. it's ice based (cool) because aran originates from an icy village. needs 200 combos i think. anyway, the aran job is going to be released real soon! (like 1-2 weeks time) so keep a lookout for it!


9,000,000 + maple points! woo. once in a lifetime only though. haha. and we didn't get to keep it anyway.

maple goodie bag! haha. just some souvenir stuff, basically.

maple sketchbooks on the left, on the right we have some keychains, stickers, notepads, handphone accessory and the key strap thingy.


the back of the sketchbooks:



the goodie bag, the bag itself. it's the wrong direction because i'm too lazy to flip the pic.



free cash items!!! this makes it all worthwhile. hahaha. free gifts who don't want?

jam scribbled at 6:30 PM

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NSF Officer:
"What's the most valuable thing you can take away from NS?"

Me (tries desperately to think of a politically correct answer and fails
miserably):
"Er..self-discipline?"

NSF Officer:
"Haha, don't give me the bullshit answer."

Me:
"So what's is it? Honestly there's nothing I can take away from
here."

NSF Officer:
"Friendship."

yes it sounds cliched and all...but given the context, i didn't really expect that. seeing all the fb updates about the junior batch ord-ing has got me reminiscing about those horror days. indeed, i can say the only thing i gained from ns is a bunch of shitty friends. shitty because they've gone through a lot of shit with me. haha. some ppl are so passionate about the stuff they do during ns, while others have probably shredded all their memory of it. (and probably re-shred again till dust.) for me, it's the shared memories we have that i hold close. i base my memory upon events rather than people. thinking of all the stupid things that we did (or were forced to do) always makes me smile.
i started the 2 years very fixed on the idea that i would gain absolutely nothing. i left with...not much, but a few friends close to my heart, which is enough for me.

jam scribbled at 9:30 AM

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The early bird catches the Hello Kitty.

lol. some interesting stuff shown at my COM201 lecture today. in particular, proverbs that makes the culture of singapore vividly come to life. some reflect the unique issues pertaining to singapore, while others poke fun at certain trends/events around us. hope you get the witty humour in these:

One man's urine is another man's drinking water.
You can lead a citizen to Newater, and you can force him to drink.

i think ptc stands for public transport costs? not sure..

What goes up can never come down: Law of GST and PTC.

some we see in the news:

We pay monkeys to get peanuts.

Where there's a will, there's a potential lawsuit.

some political stuff.

Citizens should be seen and not heard.

Lightning can strike twice if you suay-suay defame the wrong person.

some things that you may hear from those uncles, complaining about life, at coffeeshops:

After the government takes enough to balance the budget, the taxpayer has the
job of budgeting the balance.

Cleanliness is next to a Corrective Work Order.

Familiarity breeds people who might borrow money from you.

A land that rewards foreign talents over locals, will soon be foreign of
talents locally, and eventually be foreign of talents totally.

something that is related to my major =/

No news is SPH news.

finally, one for guys, during times of recession.

A bird in the hand is cheaper than going Geylang.

jam scribbled at 1:26 PM

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1. spit out my curry puff and laugh hard
2. smack my curry puff in his face

in the end i just continued eating my curry puff quietly.

Labels: advertising, commodity, postmodernism, segment, self

jam scribbled at 7:06 PM

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