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May 30, 2006
Yogya earthquake
I was on the phone with my mum last night and she updated me with the latest info on the earthquake. She said me that the earthquake can be felt all the way in my hometown Madiun. I never realised the earthquake was that big. I was down in Melbourne when I saw the news about the earthquake in Yogya, quickly I dismissed the disaster since Madiun is quite far from Yogya and the closest relative that I have is my cousin's family in Solo. LIttle did I realise that the damages from the quake are all the way up to Solo. Several buildings was destroyed in villages on the outskirt of Solo, fortunately no one is seriously injured in Solo. The same can't be said in Yogya. The heavy rains during the 2 days after the earthquake severly hamper the rescue effort, however despite the chaos there are some order. Ambulances from all over Java have been sent to Yogya and patients have been transferred into hospitals all around Java, even to Madiun's hospitals and up to Tulungagung, Mum said that food and medical aids have been sent, although she said that she's seen mostly instant noodles and wondering how the people will cook it :)
My dad witnessed first hand the chaos the day after the earthquake. A close family friend's son lives in Yogya managing the family business. On Sunday morning, dad went along with him to Yogya, he is safe and sound and while the shop is damaged, it's not that bad. Yogya is in total chaos, ambulance and fire engines were running around everywhere, food is impossible to get and people had to queue in public kitchens, those who can afford to get out from Yogya have done so. The famous Jalan Malioboro also suffered some damaged.
What makes this earthquake worse is the densely populated island of Java. In an area just over half the size of Victoria, Java is popuilated by 124 million people. Any disaster is bound to inflict high number of casualties.
Mum said that everyone in Java (and Indonesia to some extent) now has their own interpretation about what's happening in recent time. Last year we had the tsunami, a few weeks ago the Merapi is looking very angry and has been spewing hot ashes and Lava and now the earthquake. Bleak time is ahead for Indonesia she reckons.
Another casualty in this earthquake is the damage of the ancient Hindu temple Prambanan. I've visited Prambanan twice when back when I was in Indonesia it was really majestic, second only compared to Borobudur. I can only hope that the government will put an effort to restore the temple.
Posted by vhadiant at 01:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 18, 2006
Packing and moving
What never cease to amaze me is my own ability to accumulate crap over the years. I've moved three times over the past 10 years and everytime I move I threw half of my stuff, and yet I always manage to have more stuff.
Since my departure date is looming I am starting to get organise. Although I'm leaving Sydney on the 2nd of June, I will be going to Melbourne for 4 days from the 25th - 28th May, and by the time I come back from Melbourne I will be homeless because my brothers are vacating our premise on that weekend. So I have less than 1 week to get all my stuff packed in boxes and store them at my aunt's basement.
Fortunately for me, I can leave all the big stuff (read: furnitures, TV, white-goods) with my brothers for safe keeping. If they are not here I would have to sell those furnitures, fridge, washing machine etc (arggh I never know I have so much of these stuff). Although having said that, if not because of my brothers I would have gone many years ago :)
So tip for anyone who are even remotely thinking of going overseas for an extended period, do not even think of buying stuff like big fridge, big TV, queen size bed, couches, coffee table, dining table otherwise you're screwed. Just try to live with that bar fridge for a few more months ...
.... now that I think about it, the list is endless ... surfboards (x3), mountain bike, microwave, futton, computer desk, cupboard, book cases .... argghh. I can't wait to arrive in London where all that I have can be packed in a suitcase and a backpack.
Posted by vhadiant at 05:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 10, 2006
PS3 price
I didn't watch the last 3 minutes of Sony's keynote at the E3. PS3 will launch in Europe and Australia 17 November 2006 for 600 Euros and AUD 999.
Posted by vhadiant at 11:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 09, 2006
Sony E3 Press Conference Aftermath
PS3 was unveiled just a few hours ago at E3 conference. You can download the full 2 hours of the press conference video from Gamespot. I watched it a few hours ago before going to gym and thus had a bit of thought about it.
To summarise the press conference:
1) PSP #2 will have an added GPS functionality. One of the incoming software is Planet PSP, a travel guide designed for PSP. I think this could be a winner if done correctly in a subscription based or per country based sales.
2) Sony will open its back catalog of PS1 games for download to play in PSP. Kaz Hirai demonstrated playing the original Ridge Racer on PSP. Maybe they copied the idea from Nintendo, but I'm not sure how good this will be. Old Nintendo games (NES, SNES) maxed at 4MB per games. PS1 games are CD-ROM based games and FF VII spans over 3 CD. It's obvious that Sony is betting on broadband penetration to be a lot higher in the near future. If this works, this can be Sony's cash cow for the next 5 years.
3) PSP and PS3 will work together using WiFi. In the press conference, they showed an F1 game in PS3 where you can use the PSP as the rear mirror. Cool but pointless, it'll be better if you can use the PSP as for the in-game minimap or something more creative. I'm sure Hideo Kojima can figure something out.
4) You will be able to download music from Sony's shop directly to PSP. Trying to play catch up with iPod?
5) Still no good news for better PSP games in the near future. All the previewed games don't look that promising.
6) Now on to PS3. Well definitely the #1 question is how much it's going to cost. Wait no longer, Sony has released the price USD600. This is the most expensive console price ever. Yes you can get the USD500 version but it's limited and it doesn't have high def output.
7) Can't really see how good the graphic will be because the webcast quality from Gamespot is not that good. However from the various reports on the web it's going to look just as good if not better than XBOX 360.
8) Nintendo fanboys are crying foul when Sony revealed that their controller too will have a "motion sensor". Different technology (gyro) but same idea indeed. Well, isn't this interesting. I have had experience with gyro mouse and they suck. I hope Sony can do a lot better job than the current generation of gyro mouse out there.
9) Sony will release an online service that will rival if not better XBOX Live - or so they claim. Currently PS2 online service is horrendous, they can't do any worse than this. Whether it can rival XBOX Live only time will tell. We need to remember that this is Microsoft's second attempt for online game service while Sony only did a half-arsed attempt last time.
10) As expected, PS3 will double as Blue-Ray player. The base model has 20GB and the USD600 will have 60GB hard drive.
So there it is. The web is buzzing with Nintendo and XBOX fanboys crying foul about Sony is ripping-off Nintendo, Apple, Microsoft or whatever company they can name. But regardless what features Sony copied from other companies the big question is will they succeed? Can they win this seventh generation console battle?
Hard to say at the moment but I don't think they will outsell XBOX 360 5:1 just like PS2 vs XBOX in the last generation battle. Especially with the extraordinarily high launch price at USD600 and Nintendo wii's expected launch price to be USD199 (Nintendo's magic number) PS3 will look less and less attractive to most gamers. People who have been waiting for PS3 now may have decided that it's not going to worth it and buy XBOX 360 instead. I predict a spike of XBOX 360 sales in the coming weeks.
However, Sony still have the support of the behemoth game company Square Enix. Which I believe is a major factor that contributed to Playstation total dominance in the last decade. On top of that, all the major franchises - Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid - all are returning to PS3. This is a major contributor for gamers like me, and my brothers to some extent, that will pretty much buy which console Square Enix are releasing their games to.
Will I buy PS3? Yes. Will I buy it on release? Absolutely not. I will be in UK by that time and once again I'm pretty sure that UK will cop the higher-than-the-rest-of-the-world price.
Posted by vhadiant at 10:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2006
AirAsia's "guest support"
I sent an email question to AirAsia's guest support centre on the 29/04/2006. Now over a week later I still haven't received any answer. I hope this isn't a reflection of their maintenance crew.
It's a very simple question about timing and transfer between flights. I'm pretty sure it's OK, but I just need some confirmation. There isn't any point really of putting an email contact line if no one is going to look after it.
Posted by vhadiant at 11:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Google Maps is an invaluable travel tool
I'd like to book my first leg of European travel in advance so I'm not going to get caught with no roof considering I'll be travelling right in the middle of summer (July arggh ... Lonely Planet recommends to stay away from Europe during July).
Checking out the many options of hostels I initially had no idea which one to choose, especially regarding to locations. Having never been out to Paris, the hostel description can say they are in such and such location, good close to the city but yeah what do I know. This is where Google Maps helps a lot. Lonely Planet gives me a good map for the city centre, so I can get my bearing where the Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees and Google Maps completes it by giving me the exact location where the hostel is. This is really amazing, just like Whereis for Paris with steroids (much better map engine).
I just type the hostel's address in Google Maps search bar and wham it takes me to the exact location of the hostel.
Posted by vhadiant at 07:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 05, 2006
Original Unaltered Star Wars Trilogy
Oh yeah... I've been betting that Lucas Film will ope day release the original Star Wars on DVD and thus never bought the silly version of the Star Wars DVD with those added scenes. Well I was right! Lucasfilm finally is releasing the original unaltered Star Wars Trilogy.
I can finally rest my original Star Wars Trilogy VHS tapes.
Posted by vhadiant at 01:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 01, 2006
And off we go ...
I've handed in my resignation this morning and now I can talk openly about what's happening. It's a bit sad, resigning from Oakton since I really love what I'm doing and I enjoy working with everyone, both the Oakton guys and our client. I guess I'm lucky that I've landed in a few super fun projects during my year at Oakton. Then again, you gotta do what you have to do.
I'm off heading overseas for a year or two, maybe more I don't know. I will be travelling for about 4 months before trying my luck in London to find a job to fund my next set of travel (sounds like a good plan ha!). I've always wanted to do this, but prior commitment prevented me to do this earlier. But now opportunity has presented itself and I'm taking it. This will be my first travelling/backpacking experience ever, if I don't count coming to Australia on the first place is a "travel" (no it isn't). So naturally I'm very excited about the whole thing.
I'm still a bit disorganised, I've done some of the preparation but I still have a crapload of things to do. I will try to blog as much as I can about my travel and for the time being my tech blog will take a vacation as well.
My plan is to leave Sydney on the 2nd June to Singapore (with 5 hours stop over in Perth - sucks I know but I'm flying Frequent Flyer so not much choice there). I'll probably stay for 2 nights in Singapore at a friend's place (party time!!!) before going to Bangkok on the 4th June to start my Cambodia and Vietnam travel.
I know some of my friend will scoff at this (*cough* Jeff *cough* *cough*), but I will be joining Intrepid Travel rather than doing Cambodia & Vietnam myself. So why on earth I join a <gasp>guided tour</gasp>?
Well I do have several reasons:
- I don't have much time to see Indochina and I want to see as much as I can during that 1 month. The best way to do this seems to join some sort of guided tour
- I'm Indonesian. I've travelled the Java island extensively using busses (ranging from good aircon busses, average non-aircon over crowded busses, to oh-my-God-I-don't-think-this-bus-will-make-it-there kind of bus), trains, cars, minivans, motorbikes and even at the back of a ute. Trying to figure out how to travel from one SE Asian city to another is neither exiting nor new experience to me. I want someone to figure everything out and I'll just enjoy myself.
- Intrepid is not your typical bus tour filled with Taiwanese tourists or Contiki (yuck) style. They cater more to "adventure travel" crowd especially with their Intrepid Basix. I have a few friends who have travelled with Intrepid before and they all said it's superb.
- Intrepid gives back to the community
Alright before sounding like a shameless plug for the company which I haven't even travelled with (and jinx it!), I'll stop now. But that's the main reasons why I decided to go with Intrepid.
So that should be a good one month relaxing and fun holiday in Cambodia & Vietnam. The travel will finish in Hanoi on the 1st July, I'll be flying back to Bangkok then Singapore to spend another night before boarding the 2nd July flight to London.
In London I will stay at another friend's place for maybe 2/3 days before heading to Paris to officially start my western Europe backpacking trip. From Paris I have no idea where I'm going to go next, I'm just going wing it and somehow end up in Casablanca on the 14th August to meet up with a bunch of friend who want to Morocco, Portugal and west coast of France. So I do have a rough direction where to go from Paris (south then west then back up north) but no real itinerary. Who knows I might not even make it to Morocco if I get a better offer somewhere else - east maybe? Regardless I should be back in London mid to late September to replenish the cash.
Well whatever is going to be I don't really care. The world is my oyster now ... at least for the next 5 months :)
Posted by vhadiant at 09:23 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
