New Xperia, THE SONY XPERIA Z5!

Ahhh, I remember the first time I met my phone, it was a cold night (the aircon was on) and I was getting ready to go to bed. My life felt empty so to entertain myself, I thought I'd watch some Youtube before bed. And because I liked the Xperia Z so much I actually subscribed to the Xperia channel (fanboy alert!). So I was browsing through my subscription feed and there is was, the new Xperia Z1 advert has just gone up, the phone that had a 21mp camera! The whole room lighted up as I played the video (I turned on the lights), I was like, naw man, this deserves to be watched in 720p, so I willingly turned off my wifi and used my mobile data to watch the video, cause my mobile data is faster than my home internet... LIFE (fast forward two weeks later, and I regretted playing back the video 2-3 more times). I told my twin and we excitedly watched the video together (he said "oh" and resumed looking at his phone, I had to force him to watch it with me, shoving my phone in his face a couple of times in the process). And BOOM, if its one thing Sony is good at doing, it was ads, and this one was great for me, really up to my taste. So the Z1 became my favourite and also dream phone.

Here's a list, (haha, I can imagine you guys sighing)

Xperia Sola

The first was the xperia sola, I like clean, sleek, understated, slate like designs which might be boring for some

Xperia Z

Then came the Xperia Z, which was a dream come through cause I've always imagined of a phone that would be all glass!

Xperia Z1

Then the Xperia Z1, which was so awesome with its waterproofing and camera and lowlight performance (fangirling right now)

Xperia Z5

Then came the Z2, which was like ok an upgraded Z1, and the Z3 which yeah ok they came up with a rounder Xperia Z2 and THENNNNN, they came up with THIS!!!! Yeah, I know the design didn't really change much but LOOK AT THAT COLOUR! GOOD GOD I MIGHT JUST BUY THIS FOR THAT COLOUR!!!

So yeah, (don't facepalm at me, you know we all have that moment) sure, the camera was upgraded (21mp to 23mp, what's that like a 2mp bump?) The processor's faster, it has 3gb of RAM instead of 2gb. But let's look at this from an innovative stand point, they made xperia's with purple and gold and even turquoise but let's face it, this has got to be one of the best colours they've come up with! (I'm joking, you should really be able to tell by now). I'm excited for the phone, but I have never thought a phone could look so good with a non-typical colour before! And it has a fingerprint scanner, just dropping that in for ya ;)

I'm not going to talk about the Xperia Z5 Premium, cause it hasn't come out yet but also because I care about you, my fellow readers (my fellow non-existent readers, after reading this post I presume) but lemme just say something, I never thought the colour mirror, would look so appealing no matter how ridiculous the idea of simply touching the phone would leave the phone all grimy and oily.

Xperia Z5 Premium

Dat reflection doe, so good

And thus concludes, my fangirling session, in which you all had to sit and read through, for which I thank you, for you patience, and......

HAVE A GOOD ONE!

Blog Updates

In case you were wondering is this still the same blog you were reading the last month or so called "Open Mind", then yes this is still the same blog. It's been going through a lot of changes because I never felt like the blog looked the way I would like it to. SO first there was the background with Sinnoh Badges from pokemon.

Yeap, this one

Then I was like "I love scenic views, maybe I'll use that as a background!" And hence the mountains.

Another picture I liked, after searching through the internet

 And then I thought, the background's kind of distracting and its quite hard to read (to be honest). So then I opted for changing it to a much more flatter coloured background, I switched between a couple of pictures, but what looked good as a wallpaper for my laptop screen did not look nice as a background for a blog. I stumbled across a few gems along the way, and these were all candidates~

I like pictures that give you a sense of depth but at the same time appear endless

Boundless

Serene with a touch of contrast to really draw you into it

A picture that makes you stare at it, for even just a second longer

But alas, these are good as desktop wallpapers, not blog ones. Plus, it might just be my opinion though, but they kinda look tacky (just my opinion). And also I was posting about anime yet the blog had this profound picture as a background so it didn't quite match. I ended up settling with the pokemon wallpaper again only this time, it's updated to the Kalos Gym Badges, which is more recent and the colour combinations are wonderful.

So cleverly put together =D

I've got to give props to the artist, not only is he/she good at making these but also keeps up-to-date with new gym badges. Something I definitely can't say about myself. If you want to know more about the artist, I've put the link on the right side of my blog, so you can check them out and see exactly what I mean! =)

Have a good one and probably, look a little longer if you're still searching for wallpapers, you might get what you want.

First Month into Practical Training

The first month into my practical training and I must say, work is one of the things I think about less often than other things. I'm happy that so far (emphasis on SO FAR), work is work and your life after that is up to you, segregation. It's nice when your boss and colleagues all treat you like you're still a human being. It's funny when you think about all those stories about bosses demanding their employees devote their whole life and soul to their job, when the very reason you've started working is to sustain your own life. Suddenly instead, your life revolves around work and everything else is secondary. SEGREGATION, please. So I'm thankful, alhamdulillah, that so far, I'm still a human in their eyes. *sniffs* And they also happen to be some of the nicest people I've met, humans are humans, they can never be perfect, but I'm glad when you boil everything down, at the end of the day, the one thing I can truly say is that, these are nice people I'm working with.

And that's that, I think about work at work, not to mean that I turn everything off at home, but I don't feel obliged (forced) to continue working after I get back home. Which is way different in university, the lecturers demand that you work constantly, I wonder how I'll do when I get back there to continue my semester 7 and 8. Maybe its also because I'm not taking any other subjects? (We have to do our research papers while we do practical training). Which brings me to what I think about mostly, how working changes people, I mean, I've only just started a month ago and I'm just doing my practical training (which is different as I've been reminded constantly) but there's something about spending 8 hours straight with a one hour break for lunch that really tires you out. Not sure why though. The first two weeks, I would fall asleep after I got back from work.Thankfully by the third week I've adjusted to the new timetable , but it still takes a toll on you, cause I can't seem to make it past 12 midnight without my eyelids starting to close without permission.

But that's not the worst part, oh no, the worst part is that, since you start work early in the morning, you start looking forward to weekend mornings! Seriously, I was shocked, as soon as work on Friday ended, the only thing I could think of was how I was going to spend my weekend mornings having a good breakfast. Which reminds me, you'd think sitting at the desk all day without exercise would make you less hungry but what happens is otherwise, you have so many reasons to feel hungry now. You feel bored, what should you eat? You feel stressed out, any comfort food? Need to stretch you legs? Maybe I'll go down and get something to eat. And being sedentary does not help. I vowed to start exercising but we all know a promise to yourself will never go any further than just making you feel guilty of the way you're living from time to time. ANYWAYS, I actually looked forward to waking up early. When you days are limited to two, you really start trying to make the most of them.

Which brings me to my blabber for this post, a sudden realization, not the first of its kind, but a first for my mind, remember how we cared so much for sleeping in and that 9 o'clock was too early a time to get up from bed?  Well, since you wake up early all the time for work, you just kind of get used to waking up early. On top of that, add the guilt you would feel if you slept in because you just wasted one of your weekends. Plus, you're too tired to ever stay up, so instead of the teenager sleep late, wake up late routine, it changes to sleep early, wake up early. So actually your parents are just like us, but because they've started working, they're forced to become morning people. I remember my parents talking happily when we go out for breakfast and I would just keep quiet, secretly wondering how could anyone be happy waking up this early, god, even their eyes are wide open whereas mine can barely STAY open. Parents, you were just like us, but the evil nature of work has forced you to adapt and you became the people you are today. The people teenagers hate because they wake up early and drag those sleepy teenagers to have breakfast with them. I FINALLY UNDERSTAND.

But it still does not explain the fact that they persist going for breakfast when its clearly raining and the weather's perfect for sleeping! Or maybe I just haven't worked enough?

All I could muster to keep this blog afloat...

Have a good one and enjoy (and appreciate) weekends better!

Here's a picture of a cat if this post bored you, also an accurate representation of myself when I can finally lie down when I get back from work (oops, sorry practical trai- who am I kidding it's work)

Why I Can't Watch Anime Anymore =(

A little backstory:

Year 2008, Astro added Animax to their list of shows. And my twin and I were so excited, we kept checking the tv everyday, hoping that we could start watching anime already. My first encounter with anime was Naruto,

Yeap, this one, was there any doubt it would be anything else?

I started with the anime, not the manga, and I'd have to thank my brother for introducing it to me, it really was that GOOD! So anyways, we finally got to watch animax, and it didn't matter what was one, we'd watch it first, then decide whether we liked it.

An accurate depiction (well not really cause we were bigger and had curly hair and stuff...)

And we did find a quite a few we liked, Law of Ueki, Ranma 1/2, Honey and Clover, Fullmetal Alchemist, Girl From Hell and so on (I watched Dragon Ball but we all know that doesn't count), you get the picture. It was like giving kids a ton of candy they've never tasted, sure they'll be happy, sure they'll hate some but then they'll find a couple they would really like. Same thing here. It carried on until I was in university with animes like Angel Beats, Clannad and Shangri-La. I also followed my old time favourite animes like Naruto, Bleach and even started watching Fairy Tail.

But then two things happened, going to university meant I couldn't really watch tv so the discovery aspect was gone and I started realizing a  few key similarities between animes:

The popular ones are really, really, really long! Like reallllly LONG!!! (I would go on to emphasize how long it is but I actually care about my readers (not that I have any) and I last thing I want is people taking 500 frickin hours to read all the really's)

Unfortunately, the creators are not that understanding, I'm looking at you Bleach, Naruto and Fairy Tail.

Nope, if you think these faces are hard to remember, bad idea watching this anime, the guy introduces characters like he pours cereal into a bowl

Oh how naive and innocent they look, especially you sasuke, especially you... (sighs)

Little did I know those smiling faces were actually because of the hours I've wasted watching them, not that I hate them for it, I just got tired

"Look at that guy, he actually thinks things will get better"

"Look at how much he's watching our anime over choosing to sleep!"

"I pity the guy, he's waiting for a happy ending where there's no evil person threatening to destroy the world"

*group laughs*

1. They Are So Fricking Long

They were sooooo fricking long, and I didn't have the capacity to continue on watching (I really admire the fans that do though). Plus if I stop watching for a semester, I'd have a billion episodes to catch up on just to get back on track. And Fairy Tail's cliffhanger where they were all trapped in time and their guild deteriorated and they had to start over was the last straw. I just spent 50+ hours and you choose to start over?

2. There Is Always Someone Better

It's one thing when you get a villain that's stronger than you. It's another when they're always stronger than the main character, to ridiculous proportions. I get that he's the new villain and you want to introduce this thing where the audience will go like "omg how is he ever going to beat that >insert new antagonist name here<" But when you start adding characters that can just tear the planet apart you know you've gone to far! I mean realistically, if the main character manages to beat that antagonist, how can he not pat a person on the back without making a hole in it? Or he wouldn't be able to open doors without breaking them. SERIOUSLY?

The biggest offender so far, I hope no one tops him, for the fictional world's sake

Could they not think of another way to make the villain better than the protagonist besides making it a struggle of power?

3. The Main Character Manages To Beat So And So Because "WILLPOWER"

If you think never ending villains that could destroy the world were bad enough, imagine their disbelief when the main character's secret weapon was willpower. Yeap Cell, you got beaten by Gohan because he had "WILLPOWER" (and also because he apparently shouted louder than Cell did). The main character manages to defy all odds, broken bones? Don't matter, willpower fixes that. Bleeding head to toe? A drop of willpower and everything's better!

There has to be certain extents, and I just can't stand it when there are none. Like come on! You have some many other characters travelling with the protagonist that you could easily just use to make them triumphing over that more powerful enemy but the end must always be a power struggle between the main character and antagonist. ALWAYS!

4. The Main Character Is Somehow The Love Interest Of Every Girl

So after being done with all that too long and power struggle thingimajigs, I thought I'd settle for some short and sweet anime about life and not world domination. Stuff like Clannad and Angel Beats. Yea, those will be fine right? WRONG! After watching a few, I became like this:

Did all the girls HAVE to like the main character? Like is there seriously no one else you probably might like? That smart guy? The shy wallflower? The guy that actually cares about you? Nope, I only have my eyes set on that one guy! (a wonderful depiction of real life actually, I can't complain) But could you at least make it more believable? Cause if girls literally throw themselves at you (literally, for fan service) how come I don't have girlfriend yet? (shameless self promotion)

5. Filler Episodes And Fan Service

I get that its a thing in Japan and fan service is really welcome, but when you make an entire episode just for that, I'll just think you're running out of ideas. On top of that it makes me hate it more cause it makes the series longer and if I have to sit through half an hour of them "going to the beach", I might as well do something else, plus they also use it to show how all the girls seem to just swoon at the main character while he, doesn't have a clue about what's going on. (Sorry guys no memes on this one, I'd like to keep this post clean)

In the end though, this turns out to be more of a rant on how I want anime to have more content and not just reusing old formulas to come up with the next big series. I love anime and would love to watch some really good ones, the thing is there is a vast collection of anime and I don't have the time to dedicate to all of them to find good ones. And finding good ones ain't easy, it's easier finding good american tv series to watch online than it is finding anime. I did find a few I liked though like Fullmetal Alchemist, Shangri-La and Angel Beats as well as Girl From Hell to name a few.

As an end note, have a blast and keep watching anime, if you think it's really good, feel free to recommend it to me! =D

So, I Bought Headphones... Hehe =D

I've been looking into audio quality lately and after going through about 5 or so headphones (all under RM100 btw), there has always been a moment, when listening to each, where I felt like "there's something missing here" or "does it actually sound like that?". I listen to music a lot, and sometimes your ears get extra sensitive, when you wake up in the morning, for example, and I can hear a bit more detail in my songs. You'll have this 'aha!' moment when you discover that actually the songs you've been listening to has more instruments that the ones you are hearing currently. This is due to the quality of music you're listening to, the audio player you're using, and lastly the headphones you're using. As long as you're playing music with the bitrate of 192kbps or higher (given that the song is not of live recording or youtube quality) with studio quality, all the detail should be there, my songs are usually at 320kbps and I'm currently transitioning to lossless quality, all the detail should be there, higher quality audio just sounds crispier and more apparent with the added "airyness" of lossless audio that actually gives you a feel of the space of the room the audio was recorded in. This is all I have realized over the years of listening to songs.

Long story short, I wanted to experience the song or music in its full glory, no sounds hidden behind loud thumping bass, or instruments that come and go without knowing when they were actually introduced (the story on the journey, I shall put in another post, should I actually get around to it, haha). So after always going for the cheap headphones or buying something "that offers good quality audio for its price", I've finally made the decision to actually invest in actual studio grade headphones. The price of which based on my many readings started at around 100 USD, which in my currency was about RM300-400 (more towards 400 thanks to the government now). The reasoning was, I might just keep on buying cheap headphones, hoping that this one would be the one which actually gave me what I wanted to hear. I'm not saying the headphones I bought previously didn't, they did, but always to an extent. Like I said, always something missing.

And now, I have these~

THE AUDIO TECHNICA M40X!!! (trumpet sounds~)

I did extensive readings for headphone recommendations, all around 100 dollars. I even watched a few video reviews. All of them either recommended these or said that these were a great choice. I read reviews on the M40X's, they were all unanimously in favor of headphones! So I was like "I had got to get me some of these!" This is a short post, as I haven't got to writing down my thoughts on these, but so far, I can only say good things about these, the detail is stupendous, the bass is nice, thumpy and full, the treble is detailed and beautiful and the vocals, warm and forceful, I can't even say more, you'll have to listen to these to really get a feel of how good they are! Of course now that your interest is piqued, I thought I'd just give you the unboxing experience:

The box these come in, minimal designing yet screams quality.

They won't let you see the headphones first, I get it, hold the suspense a bit longer

The various reading material and leather pouch to carry these around~

The headphones!

The cylinder above these headphones house the cables; 

One straight 3.5m cable and one 3.5m coiled one, gold plated connections with an adapter for HQ audio 

The leather pouch that goes along with it

And finally, just to highlight that these headphones have a locking mechanism for the audio jack, so you can't pair these with other wires, great to know a sudden jerk won't wear out the connection

And that's it! Have a blast and keep listening to music~

They were RM360 in case you were wondering, I bought them online at lelong.com and this is written in small font in case my parents read this