Gundamaniac

A local Philippine TV station has made a sequel of an original Toei sentai series Uchuu Keiji Shaider. Check out wiki on Uchuu Keiji Shaider for more info on the series, or you can check out the opening on youtube. Old fans of the show can check out the last episode of Uchuu Keiji Shaider as well.

More than a decade ago, the series was a big hit during its original Philippine airing, thus GMA Network decided to bank on its success and seeked Toei Japan to allow them to do a remake of the series. Unfortunately for GMA network the appeal was rejected, so they tweaked their concept as a spin off series taking place 20 years after the original series and named it Zaido Pulis Pangkalawakan (Galactic Police Zaido).

but instead of a solo space sheriff battling the forces of evil they decide on making it a three man super sentai team. Although I’d have to say the old helmet seem to look better than these new ones. ^^;

apparently in this series the red ranger isn’t the leader while the sidekick blue is the main man.

“I never ride my motorcycle without my helmet and protective pads”. ^^;

Street Fighter’s General M. Bison checks on the crew of Startrek’s USS Enterprise? ^^;

or is it the USS Defiant ^^

if you find your TV channel button stuck and you can’t watch anything else, at least you can check out the babes in starfleet pajamas. look its seven point one of nine tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01.

“I’m not Obiwan, you’re in the wrong set there is no phantom menace here.”

The show actually has a good premise, who would have thought of doing a sequel of an old super sentai show. However after trying to watch an episode on TV I found myself dozing off the first few minutes before the show even hit a commercial break. frankly there’s far too much melodrama and too little action for this series. and unlike the regular super sentai shows where one might find closure when the good guys beat the evildoers and save the world at the end of each episode, this series runs on and on like a noon time drama series. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of our Lives!!! ^^ so if you find yourself wide eyed from drinking that 5 gallons of mutiple shot expresso check out this clip on youtube of the Galactic Police Zaido. (english subtitled)

on a side note, I often wonder how super sentai’s in Japan and the American power rangers seem to have similar expressions, mannerism and action while in costume. even the bad guys from both sides of the world move the same way. Did the stunt people for the power rangers show have special sentai training. I wonder if there is some sort of super sentai school of martial arts out there. ^o^

Finally got my hands on the Gundam Fix Figuration # 35 the Musha Gundam. and although I never got to see the SD musha gundam series, I’m real glad that they didn’t release this particular GFF as the original SD. In fact I was quite impressed on how much cooler the Musha Gundam looked as a regular shaped gundam with all the samurai armour sticked into it.

I wasn’t able to pose the Musha Gundam since I did these shots in a rush. but I’ll probably take new shots for this Gundam on the weekend. until then here are some of the images taken behind some old photos I took as well as a kyoto wallpaper I pawned off from DannyChoo.com via his wallpaper tool

the image behind the Musha Gundam is from a town somewhere near Mount Fuji. I’m sorry I can’t remember the name, but I do remember they had lots of good food for sale there. ^^;

Musha Gundam and Fuji san

again background images are from DannyChoo.com. also check out the great looking desktop wallpapers available on his wallpaper tool.

Flew to Malaysia for the weekend, and although I’ve visited the country a few times before, I’d have to say there’s always something new for me to experience each time I visit Malaysia.

Petronas Towers

This place never gets old, the world’s tallest twin tower, which incidentally is also the world’s second tallest building. Although both buildings are being used exclusively by the Petroliam Nasional Berhad company otherwise known as Petronas, underneath the two towers is an upscale mall.

and on occasion, items like this on sale. ^^;

but be wary hailing a cab, cab drivers there can smell naive tourists a mile away. my cousin had a similar experience in Shanghai. just remember never pay more than 15RM for a taxi ride or 20RM during rush hour.

Corus Hotel
a four star hotel within a block distance from Suria KLCC mall and the petronas tower. we got the rooms packaged with the one night stay in Awana Genting inclusive of transfers for a measly $200usd. I would have been real happy on the deal until I found out on the last day that the Corus Hotel was giving out free Apple juice

just turn on the tap and Viola! free flowing yellow liquid.

Batu Caves
on the way to Genting Highlands we dropped by an old Hindu temple called Batu caves.

call me lazy but I was to weary to climb the over 200 step ladder that lead to the temple. however the sights below were good enough for me, they even had a barrel worth of real monkeys to keep people entertained.

keep your food stuff in the car though, or these chimps might decide to have a feeding frenzy on your munchies.

Genting Highlands
I would probably describe Genting Highlands as a mini Las Vegas. there’s entertainment for people of every age. younger folks might want to go around the 3 theme parks available. however personally I did much prefer the indoor park rather than the outdoor one.

and for the more older folks there are 2 casinos and a nice golf course there as well.

[Show as slideshow] 12►

some info and spoilers on Gundam 00 from the undisputed king of all that is gundam Gunota.

Random 00 info
From Newtype: Hiroomi Iketani, one of the Gundam 00 producers, reveals some numbers associated with first episode of Gundam 00.

- About 2 years - The amount of time they spent planning the series. It started with temporary name “Next”. Iketani met Seiji Mizushima for the first time at the end of 2005.
- About 30 people - Number of casts for the first episode.
- About 4hrs 30mins - The amount of time it took to record the audio. This is about average compared with other anime.
- Over 300 people - The staff members of Gundam 00. Compared with other shows, it probably has more main staff members (for an example, the mecha designers). Including the director, a lot of the staff is new to Gundam.
- Twice the amount compared to a typical show - The total amount of drawings needed to make the first episode.
- Over 400 pages - Reference drawings made for episode 1.

00 spoilers
From this month’s anime magazines (Newtype & Animage)
(more…)

I was fortunate enough to fly to Malaysia for the weekend. but what was most unfortunate was that I had to take a low-fare budget airline since all of my companions had already bought their tickets from the said airline. They got a very good deal on the plane fare, since Cebu Pacific was having a 1 peso ($0.02 usd) fare promo. however with all the tax, terminal fee, etc they’d still have to pay around $120usd, which would still be a good deal for an international flight.

don’t let the lively colours fool you, you’d probably get a better ride from a epileptic mule or the poor man’s gundam. ^^

< Warning: the rest of this blog entry will be devoted to my rants on the Cebu Pathetic Airlines. so if you are an avid supporter of Cebu Pacific you might not want to read on >

Like most airlines with a budget, Cebu Pacific uses the Airbus A320. I would expect this particular “short to mid” range passenger aircraft to be used on local flights but not for international flights. then again I shouldn’t have expected much since most (but not all) had paid one peso for their fare. People who paid more can’t expect to be seated in business class either since there’s usually no business class on budget airlines. So in the interest of getting better placed seats we checked in 5 hours before departure. but to my dismay the ground personnel was amazingly able to book 2 people on the same seat, and I just happened to be one of the 2. in the end I was able to sit on my designated seat only to find out that it was a useless-good-for-nothing-non-reclining seat. and when I got thirsty and ask for a glass of water, I had to fork over 50 pesos for an 8 pesos bottle of water. My impression on the captain was far from pleasant as well, when the plane hit a rather rough patch of turbulence and some people on the back gave out a small scream, there wasn’t any explanation made on the PA system to reassure passengers that their plane wouldn’t be falling down towards the sea below. and while lining up for the toilet right after my wife, the pilot decided to cut in line in front of me, enter the toilet while I was going in, and without even an “excuse me”.  I would have probably started a fist fight with the bastard if I wasn’t too tired since the flight was an odd hour red eye flight.  Fact is it was probably the most agonizing 3.5 hour flight I’ve ever experienced. and I couldn’t believe that I felt jetlag after flying to a country under the same time zone.