Rubenerd

And the Rubenerd award for the fugliest car of the year goes to: the Toyota FJ Cruiser mini SUV!

If you love SUV's but hate their thirst for oceans of expensive premium petrol and the dents they leave in your driveway when they're parked there for more than 5 minutes at a time, you'll love the FJ Cruiser! Comes with two doors that look out of place, rear windows that end in an awquard place, and bodywork lines that don't have a place! You won't want to be seen in any place or place this car in any place when you have the FJ Cruiser!

Seriously though, who designed this car? Surely you couldn't get this Toyota in Asia… could you?

toyota, suv, environment, fuel, petrol

The latest anime I'm watching is REC, based on the manga by Hanamizawa Q-Tarou. It's a SHAFT production, directed by Ryotaro Nakamura (you can find out more through Wikipedia, the Anime News Network or the official Japanese website.)

What initially drew me to this series was its peculiar episode format: in the first (and current) series there are nine episodes, but unlike most other anime each episode is only 12 minutes long. It's actually a very watch-able time, it's not too long for when you don't have much time and it keeps each episode interesting. I think many other serialised shows could benefit from being shrunk, I'm sure you could have an episode of most Western television shows cut in half and still retain the necessary elements to keep the plot the same.

As with the timing of the episodes, the premise of the story also drew my interest; instead of being yet another series centred around a team of high school girls or evil robotic cyborgs (not that those in certain does are a bad thing mind… ahem) it shows the adventures of a young businessman who seems to be a dead end marketing job and a 20 year old aspiring seiyū (which is ironic in itself considering seiyū artists would be involved in the production of the anime itself) who idolises Audrey Hepburn. An interested premise!

I'm watching the DVD release with English subtitles. I don't think there's an English dub available, and I don't care, I hate dubs! ;). Seeing as I'm so early into the story I'm not going to rate it just yet, but I can tell already that it could be in my top 5.

With this series I'm going to be doing something I haven't done before; I'm going to review each series as I watch it. Even if nobody else is interested at least it gives me a record of what's going on!

I've seen Episode 1 already but it's almost 02:00am here and I should get to bed; I'm going with my mum to the hospital for her chemo very early tomorrow. Actually… today, damn it!

anime, rec, rec manga, rec anime, hanamizawa q-tarou, shaft, ryotaro nakamura

Song Playing: Maggie May, Rod Stewart

Today was mostly dominated with the results of two developments. I'll start with the first development, which is usually a good way to start because starting with the second thing would actually be reassigning the second thing priority and making it the first thing, which defeats the purpose.

The mid term election results in the United States started trickling in to us rest-of-the-world people today. Turning on the BBC and CNN this morning showed waves of pleased Democrats announcing their success in the House of Representatives.

But it didn't stop there! Living in Malaysia, a moderate Muslim country, there were noticeable signs of relief amongst everyone. The feeling here, and I imagine in most of the Islamic world, is that the West views all of them as terrorists. I think its safe to say that most of us living outside the United States fear George W. Bush more than the terrorists (some don't even think they're mutually exclusive), so to have his power and his agenda for his last two long years in office effectively sidelined is nothing but good news for the rest of us.

Frank Nora on the Overnightscape would have voted Libertarian which I congratulate him for; he says he does it because he feels good voting for them rather than voting for the lesser of two evils. I can relate; in Australia I always vote for the Greens party, not because they're the lesser of two evils but because I actually agree with everything they stand for. Some people may dismiss our votes toward smaller parties as wasted, but the way I see it voting is all about saying who you think is the best party or person to lead the country.

The second result concerned my sister: she had her last school exam for the year today, so she's free! She seems a bit worried about what some of her results will be but I'm sure she did well. The big difference between us I think is in "what way we're smart" if you get my drift: I recieved great marks in my computer and science subjects in high school because I had a really keen interest in the subjects themselves to start off with; my sister wasn't interested in any of her subjects and I suspect she'll do just as well as I did! She's certainly smarter than me I can guarantee people that.

We celebrated with Pizza. George W. Bush screwed and my sister's last school exam, there was reason to celebrate!

Signing out,
Ruben

diary, log, ruben schade

As you may have seen on earlier posts about Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, I'm currently suffering from a Flickr photo addiciton. I've been spending hours looking through photos!

It seems though every second Singapore picture I find has something to do with sushi! Mmm… :D

Sushi Don is one of my favourite chains of Sushi bars in Singapore
By ez2axs

I like the Sushi Don typeface.
By ez2axs

Mmm… Singapore Changi Airport Sushi…
By toyohara

Singapore is full of Sushi bars… mmm… Sushi.
By victoriachan

flickr, photos, photography, japanese in singapore, singapore, sushi, sashimi

I'm sure by now if you're already interested in this sort of thing you'd already know about it, but I have to post it!

Read the news a few hours ago on Reuters.com:

Democrats swept Republicans out of power in the House of Representatives and made gains in the Senate, riding to victory on a wave of public discontent with the Iraq war, corruption and President Bush’s leadership.

Two years after a decisive election victory for Bush and his Republicans, Democrats picked up at least the 15 seats they needed to win control of the House for the first time since 1994, according to TV network projections.

The win is likely to slam the brakes on Bush’s legislative agenda in his final two years, make Democrat Nancy Pelosi the first female Speaker of the House and give Democrats a chance to investigate his administration’s most controversial policy decisions such as the war in Iraq.

This can only be a good thing for the United States, and global stability. George W. Bush has wrecked America's credibility in the eyes of the world, now he will have to answer for his actions and future legislation. I'm sure my school friend Felix Tanjono who is now studiying in Indiana will be very pleased!

Wonder if another Bushism will come out of this? :D.

Now all that needs to be done is to get John Howard's control of the Australian senate neutralised and the evil Bush-Blair-Howard's reign of evilness will be over!

Good on ya America :D.

united states, republican, democrat, america, november 7, 7th november, senate

Guy Clark: Like a Coat from the Cold

Whenever I type a post on The Desk I tend to type the title first then proceed to fill out the post itself, but today I'm being a rebel and doing it the other way round. Ruben you're a mischievous little devil.

Got an email from my relative James Ross today which was a pleasant surprise. I call him "my relative" because I'm not exactly sure what to call him! He's my mum's dad's brother's son! I don't think he's a cousin because he's not a son of my mum's brother, and he's not an uncle because he's not my mum's brother. Is he my second cousin? What is a second cousin? I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight!

So James emailed which was awesome! I think James is really the only other person in my family that is actively involved in computing other than me. He works in RedHill Consulting and even did a J2EE project for a major company in Melbourne which is damned impressive!

I want to set up my business in Singapore when I finish university, partly because that's where I grew up, but also for practical reasons: apparently it ranks in the top five places in the world for ease of setting up a business (think it was in BusinessWeek or something, so it must be true ;) ) and being in Asia its right in the middle of where all the development is happening in the world right now so there are lots of opportunities.

Oh I almost forgot: James has even co-written a book for Wiley on Algorithms of which I have a copy to replace the archaic textbook the uni recommended! I may be a bit biased, but it's darned good especially in the sections where he explains how the more complex sorts work: James and Simon explain in a fraction of the space AND it actually makes more sense! I'll be doing a more in-depth review on the Rubenerd Show soon.

Here's a shot of the cover, James is on the right.

Now I just need to figure out where he gets his hair cut, where he buys his clothes and what brand of glasses he wears and I'm all set!

Anyway an update on my mum, the chemotherapy gave her pain again today which was no good, but we sat in her room with coffee and biscuts for the better part of the day talking and using the internet on our Apple laptops so life was good. She was investigating cosmetic company websites and asking herself why companies with such high profit margins and revenue can't hire someone to make a half decent website! She's put the links in her del.icio.us link blog if cosmetics are your thing.

Wow it's close to 03:00am here in Kuala Lumpur, though I'm still not tired. I don't get it.

A bit good luck wish going out to my sister who will be sitting her high school "Legal Studies" exam tomorrow. Damn those Acts of Parliament!

Signing out,
Ruben

redhill, james ross, redhill consulting, james ross, simon harris, james ross, debra schade, james ross, beginning algorithms, james ross, 0764596748

Whenever I'd download Mozilla Firefox the first thing I always did was remove the useless "Go" button and save myself some increasingly valuable screen real estate.

In Firefox 2.0 though for some unknown reason this irritating as hell little go button is stuck permanently on the side of the address bar, so going to the Customise Toolbar menu to remove the little blighter did diddley-squat. Thanks Ned Flanders.

However after some tweaking I found it can be done! Go to your address bar and type in about:config, then use the search bar in the new screen to locate browser.urlbar.hideGoButton. Double click this and the button will be out of your life, and your browser.

Why am I customising my Firefox 2.0 browser at 02:12 in the morning?!

firefox, firefox 2.0, mozilla firefox, mozilla

I'm addicted to Flickr! I've been looking through photos for ages and wasting so much time! Yesterday I posted some of my favourite Kuala Lumpur Flickr photos, so I thought it would be fitting to put some of my favourite Singapore ones on now.

The Singapore skyline from the Oriental Hotel across the bay.
By furtive

Singapore is such a small big place. Or a big small place.
By Peter Garnhum

(Update 2021: Account no longer exists)
Looking out from the Esplanade
By StarvingFox

(Update 2021: Account no longer exists)
The OUB Building
By sachinchitale

(Update 2021: Account no longer exists)
The Esplanade, Suntec City, Centennial Tower, Millennia Tower
By BATSCHGE!

(Update 2021: Account no longer exists)
Singapore is full of Sushi bars… mmm… Sushi.
By victoriachan

photos, photography, skyline, asia, south-east asia, south east asia, singapore, singapore city

If you already don't know, I'm currently living in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Just browsing through Flickr for Creative Commons pictures for Kuala Lumpur generated some pretty nice results:

Stunning shot of the Petronas Twin Towers
By MrAaron

Nicely framed shot of Menara KL (KL Tower) and the Twin Towers
By peter.macdonald

An almost surreal shot of the city under the darkness of heavy cloud
By aymanshamma

KL gets pretty bright at night!
By leafbug

Great evening shot looking down to the monorail tracks
By Timmy Toucan

View from the Twin Tower skybridge
By elbisreverri

photos, photography, skyline, asia, south-east asia, south east asia, kuala lumpur, kl, malaysia, peninsular malaysia

A message to my American friends: make sure to vote today your time! Stop this redneck Bush madness! You don't have to vote Democrat, just don't vote Republican!

A message from the always unbiased Rubenerd Anti-George-Bush-in-US Anti-John-Howard-in-Australia commision. ;)

7th november, november 7th, november 7, democrats, republicans, george bush, rednecks, george w. bush, dubbya, united states, usa, politics