Did you ever wished that you could go back in time and relive your childhood again? I bet you did. During our childhood, most of us had always wished to grow up quickly so we could get control of our own life and do the things we like, and never had to worry about what our parents has to say anymore.

When I was a kid, I don’t have to worry about anything other than studies and growing up fast enough to catch up with other older kids. I’ve my parents to take care of my every basic needs – shelter over my head, food to feed my tummy, clothes to wear against the weather, transportations to school, everything is there for me – and I thank God for blessing me with a happy family.

But how ironic it seems, as we reach adulthood, despite our childhood wishes to the contrary, we wanna be young again. We wished that Doraemon exists and so does his time machine, too. Lately, I’ve been listening to stories told by my friends on how hard it is now to earn a living, on the rising petrol prices and the effects of it, on troubles dealing with some crazy housemates, relational hardship, and the stories just keeps on coming in.

So much worries, so much pain, why did we even wish for that when we were a kid? Remember now, during this year’s christmas, wish for a Doraemon, and his time machine. Tell Santa okay.

This is a 18sx-rated post. Parental guidance is required. Pictures are taken in an anonymous China supermarket.

Those goods are pretty fucked up.

The price is so expensive nowadays that they’ve to Fuck the certain price of goods! It’s clear that the Chinese doesn’t like certain price of goods. What did they do? Yeah, fuck them!

Now that’s what I call, fucked up translation. I think they’re better off sticking with Mandarin than having shitty translations from a blind translation software. They should have at least get someone to proof-read their computer-generated translation, anyone with a minimal english-command will know what “fuck” means.

*Thanks to JKLam for the tipping!

If you guys haven’t watched this movie yet, go and get your “you know what” and start biting your bandwidth now! Battle Royale was released in year 2000, it’s a bit late for me I know. I’v heard about the movie before but never had the time to watch it. Today, I managed to stumble upon it in Blockbuster. So I rented it and watched it. Thrilling and violent-packed! Here goes the storyline.

The new millennium Japan was in disarray and the country is collapsing. Unemployment rate was sky high at 15% and schools violence is out of hand, with rebellious teenagers staing mass boycotts. So, the beleaguered government relatiated with a programme codenamed – “Battle Royale”.

Battle Royale is a game where each year, a random class was chosen and they were dropped onto an isolated island and each and every one of the students must fight and kill their friends for their own survival.

Here are the rules of the game:-

1. The game lasts 3 days.
2. Each player starts out with an army bag that comes with food, water, and a “weapon”. Everyone gets a different type of weapon, some could get as good as a machine gun, some just a cover lid for protection.
3. After the 3rd day, if more than one player survives, all of them must die.
4. There is no escape, as everyone’s neck is permanently strapped with an explosive that will go off should they exceed their specified perimeter.

This is like the “Survivor” series, only wilder and more brutal.

First casualty of the game, Fujiyoshi was shot dead by an army knife from the teacher because she wasn’t paying attention during the briefing. 1 down, 41 to go. Now it started to sound like a game of Counter-strike.

This particular guy accidentally killed himself by an axe when he tried to attack Nanahara, the good guy who tried to escape the “game”, among a few others.

This group of girls formed a pact of trust that no one will kill each other and they had to walk together till the end of the game. But tensions grow between them when one of them was mistakenly poisoned by one of the girls. They all end up dead.

There’s a hacker who succeeded in hacking through the military’s control system that tracks their positions and activities. He’s in one of the trust pact consisting of 5 other students, including Nanahara. They planned to destruct the military base using self-made sulphur bombs. 3 of the guys ended up dead – killed by one of the new student on transfer, who’s also the cruelest killer.

Well, what’s a Japanese movie without pretty girls?

At the end of the story, the teacher revealed this picture. Drawn by one of the survivors well before she joined the game. It depicts her self-centered thoughts – every dies and only she survives – which is probably how the government got the idea of this game.

The game ended with three survivors, instead of one according to the rules. I’m not gonna tell you how that happened cause it’ll kill the thrill of watching the movie. Sit tight and enjoy you guys! I’m on my way to watching the Battle Royale II (2003) now.

Preparing the Favorite Icon

If you have Photoshop knowledge, you can make your own icon image. Start with a 64×64 image and after you’ve finished your creation, resize it down to 16×16 and save it as .ico file. If you do not have the icon file format in Photoshop, you can download it here.

Download Photoshop .ico file format. Right-click on the link and and click “Save Link As…” to download. Place it under your Photoshop > Plug-Ins > File Formats folder.

For those who doesn’t play with graphics, or too lazy to make one, you could generate one using any images you like from this service at Chami.com

Or, you could use some of these ready-made Christmas-themed icons I’ve collected from the Internet.

Just right click on any of them and Save Image As “.ico” file.

Upload it to a webserver

Upload your favicon file to your webserver, if you have one. Or, you could place them on image hosting services like ImageShack, or Photobucket. Or, if you’re using Blogger to blog, you can just upload your icon file in their “Create Post” editor.

Execute the Icon from the Code

Put the following code within the <head> and </head> tags zone in your HTML or webpage.

<link rel="Shortcut Icon" href="http://www.alexallied.com/favicon.ico">

Just replace the URL of the icon with your own and you’re done! Enjoy your website/blog with new personalized favicon!

I’m gonna show you how to save space on your browser so you can place more bookmarks to your favorite websites.

I could stuff more than 30 bookmarks in my Bookmark toolbar, just like this! Got the idea yet? I’m effectively utilizing website’s icons as an idenfication to shortcuts in my bookmark. Well, if you know how to do it already, you could skip the following steps. Else, read on.

First, drag that icon and drop it onto your “Bookmarks Toolbar”. Of course, you’ll have to enable your bookmarks toolbar in the first place if you haven’t already done that. Just go to “View” > “Toolbars” > Tick on that “Bookmarks Toolbar”.

Step 2. Right click on the new bookmark that you’ve just dropped in and choose “Property”. Empty the “Name” section of the form, then click OK. You’re done!

*For those websites that doesn’t come with an icon (a paper document icon will show up instead), you’ll need to leave a short name so you could recognize them.

Went to Box Hill Centro today to get myself groceries for next week. Not surprisingly, it’s jam-packed! During weekends, this place is usually stuffed in the afternoon until about 4-5pm. I even took 15 minutes wandering around the parking lots for spaces. This market place is similar to Springvale, just that the population is mostly Chinese, while Springvale’s a Vietnamese suburb.

Most of the shoppers there are locals from the City of White Horse, while others are from surrounding suburbs, like I am. People flock the marketplace for the cheaper price on daily supplies, groceries, and other essentials.

At one end of the market, I saw this group of shoppers. Madness! I’ve no idea what they’re looking at.

Let’s bring the camera closer to the action. It’s the mangoes! Cheap mangoes at $1/kilo. Mangoes here are usually priced at $2 per piece – that’s one hell of a pricey commodity there. Come to think about it, last time I can climb up my neighbours’ tree and get them for free!

Peoples here are crazy about cheap stuffs, as long as they’re cheap, they’ll buy, quality’s not really important. You know those cramped veges and fruits, usually those big hypermarkets will just throw them away, what a waste. Here, they sell them for 50-70% off and it’s still a profit for them!

Noodles Galore! Seen any of those before? What can you come up with all these different kinds of noodles?

Shanghai, and Hokkien noodle.

Pure Egg, and Shanghai Noodle of a different brand.

Chow Mein, and Peking Noodle.

Of all these noodles, I only knew Hokkien noodle – Penang’s famous, ask Penang mom and she’ll tell you stories about it! Pure egg noodle – used in Char Siew min and others, and Chow mein – fried noodle, everyone knows that. I’ve never tried Peking and Shanghai noodle before. Maybe next time.

Nevermind those noodles, I’m quite sure I know these type of noodles.

Instant Noodles!!! Student’s best food – the must have survival pack! Keeps your tummy quiet, economically.

Christmas is around the corner. Decorations are all up and shops are selling X’mas merchandises.

Christmas decorations.

Christmas gifts and cards.

I’ll try to snap more Christmas-related photos from now on. At the mean time, please head over to Wuching’s blog for more santa claus!