A Belated Happy Birthday Spira!

I'm back! And thats because I'm done with Final Fantasy XIII in Japanese. It's a great game and I really enjoyed it. I didn't clear the side quest stuff because usually I leave that for the English version.

Anyway, I forgot to make a birthday post for Spira, my FFXI character. Believe it or not, as of the 11th of December 2009, I've been playing Final Fantasy XI, on and off (mostly on) for SEVEN years.

Quite like last year's birthday post, but with more text, a short trip down memory lane is in store. I was thinking of doing a full trip down memory lane thing when FFXIV is about to release - it takes more time to get that sorted anyway.

Here goes.

2003 - This pic was taken when my character was less than a week old. It seems like such a long time ago, but my memories of the game from this time are among the most vivid.


2004 - I've come a very long way since last year, but still no 75 yet. The journey still felt fun enough to take slowly. Here, I'm playing my first job - Red Mage.
I chose it because I thought it would be a jack-of-all-trades. How little I knew back then.


2005 - Finally had my 75 by 2005, but this was on my favourite job. My so called dream job when I first unlocked it, the Summoner. Summoner is still my real main job, even though I've shared my love for pets to other jobs. I think this says something about the managerial side of me.


With 2006 came Treasure of Aht Urhgan, and I was drawn to the Puppetmaster job, because of the pet. I knew straight away I wanted to play this as my third 75. I just didn't know it would suck that badly for quite some time. It's an immensely fun job but the amount of effort required to get it really good is more than I could handle thus far.


2007 - Wings Of the Goddess was released! By this time I had already leveled Dragoon to 75 and was working on my Beast Master, which is featured in this picture. Beast Master was also fun, but its a slow job to level because of all the soloing. Took a bit of patience to get used to, but I like this job. I only wish I had more reasons to use it.


2008 - End-game had been treating me well in 2008. I managed to kill a whole lot of stuff I'd always wanted to. In this year I decided to use my Dragoon to take the annual picture because it had missed out previously.


2009 - This year.
I didn't realise it when I took the picture, but this year's job is the same as last years. In fact, you can barely tell the difference between the two years since my equipment has hardly changed save for the pretty new Sarissa lance that I'm sporting, that was introduced a few weeks ago.



and with that, a little fashion show of my 5 jobs at 75. I decided to put on nice shiny gear, or just gear on all my 75 jobs whilst sorting equipment out, so heres the pics of it.

"My name is.. Summoner Spira, and don't you forget it."


For all your Refresh needs. My Red Mage gets used most of the time.


The Dragoon. My favourite DD job. Ok, my only decent DD job. Check out the pretty lance! :D This is TP Gear by the way, but it hasn't been retweaked.


The humble Puppetmaster. Although I never had time to do it properly, I'd aimed for making my PUP focused on magic damage and nuking. It's mostly automaton bonuses and INT gear.


He may cheer, but my Beast Master rarely gets any action at all. I don't really feel inclined to use it until its either better, or has a new specialized use - and it doesn't.


Well then, thats all from Spira this year.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :D

Look forward to next year's installment, which will also feature Spira in FFXIV XD

My FFXIII is HERE

Hahaha.. it seems like all I've been talking about lately is Final Fantasy. But there's a good reason for this, because the latest entry in the series has been released, just 2 days ago on Thursday - and to fans like me, it is a big deal.

But I can't be more happy now, since I finally got my copy of the game which I ordered from Play-Asia. It took a while to arrive but I'm glad it didn't come any later.

Why am I still here? Well, I wanted to share my joy :p so I'm showing you what the product looks like.

I got mail! It's the UPS thingy.


And inside the packet thingy, is a box.


And inside the box is a bubble wrap pocket.


And finally we get to see.. the game.
The box art for the Japanese version of Final Fantasy games has always been this simple.


Here's what it looks like inside.
Square Enix Members point card - check.


One of the pages in the booklet.


The FFXIV promo item + beta test ballot code. Another reason why I bought the Japanese version as opposed to the Asian one. This comes with the first press only.


Pretty huh.


And the back.


Alrighty. That's all folks.

Time to say goodbye to my social life for about a week.

The government so controls my blog.

I think it's really ridiculous for anyone to believe that Singapore's bloggers and their blogs are mainly controlled by the government. Even when you use a word like mainly to soften the audacity of such a statement, it is so very far from the truth.

While it may be that Singapore has a slightly more authoritarian governing style as compared with other countries, and its press has little freedom, the same cannot be said of its citizen journalists.

Of course, there are topics that face some degree of restriction. Anything seditious is usually not allowed, but that is only one particular guideline we have to conform to. Honestly speaking, even if there weren't any laws against it I'd say anyone who tries to use blogs for hate-movements are only trying to escape the consequences of doing it in the physical realm. But the Internet is not some safe haven - every user has his responsibilities and will face the consequences of his actions.

But that's just restriction. Nothing about it says that we, as bloggers in Singapore are CONTROLLED by the government. That is a very bold statement to make, and once again I have to say, so untrue.

Because, if I were controlled by the government, would I still be blogging about what I want to blog about? The things I do, the stuff I like, the news I care about - none of that is under the purview of the government. They wouldn't be able to control what I blogged about, even if they wanted to.

I don't know what a certain Michael Arrington thinks Singapore as a nation is. If you want to carry on believing Singapore is some unfortunate country that is smothered by its government in terms of freedom of expression and (especially) online activities, you can go ahead - you're entitled to an opinion, even if it's unfounded.

But please don't go around making irresponsible statements like that. People actually have to clean up after the mess you make.

My Angel, and my Girls...

So when was the last time I said anything about my fave South Korean pop idol girls?

So Nyeo Shi Dae recently swept up 6 awards at the Melon Music Awards, including 2009 Artiste and 2009 Song!


I'm so proud of them :D And check out Taeyeon and Yoona's lovely hairdos.

Really though, much of their success in the K-Pop industry this year is attributed to the super hit single "Gee" (even though personally I like Tell Me Your Wish (Genie) more)... but I do like Gee a lot too, so I'm still really happy they won.

Here's them performing Gee and Genie at the awards. Their live performance singing isn't that great, but I still think they did nicely.

Christmas came early this year...

Square Enix gave us a little surprise today.
Final Fantasy VIII is now available on the US PlayStation Store for just $9.99 USD.

Go get this classic! I know I have...