Birdathy report :D

Just a quick update on what I did and what I got for my birthday :)

Went to the beach for a picnic and kayaking. Except I didn't realise I could actually get seasick on a kayak. That wasn't so good. But other than that we had a great day. :)

Now, pressie: Mum managed to find a very nice cake plate with Happy Birthday written on it.. which means I can use it about once a year, twice if Pete's using it too. That's my mum for you. :) Not that I'm not happy with it, I just find it highly amusing. Pete's mother got me A LOT of stuff, I feel kinda bad. But there's this absolutely beautiful clock that she found. Yay! Clock for new house! :)

Petey got me the Myst collection! All 5 games in one box! I'm as happy as can be! I only played Myst before... Couldn't find Riven you see. Now that I have all 5 games I'm going to play them in series. :) Before that though I'd need to upgrade my computer first I guess...

Anyway, good start of the year for me I guess. :) I ever finish making my research plan for this year on the second day of me being 26 :P Heh.

Another Friggin' Year Older

On this last day of me being 25 my supervisor has to send me an email saying he wants a meeting first thing monday morning where I can summarise what I've done in 2006 and what I'm going to do in 2007. Heck as Einstein said, "If we know what we're doing, they wouldn't call it research would they?". So there. I don't know.

Remember when you were young and you just can't wait til your birthday? I still get that sort of feeling for things like Christmas, or moving out to the new place. Just not really for my birthday anymore. I think it's more so much that I mind my age, but more to do with the fact that I just got used to being 25. Look I barely just got used to the idea that I'm an adult and not a kid anymore, and now you want to tell me I've already spent half of my "20s" years? Not going to happen. It's a bit like Catcher in the Rye I guess. You just grow up without realising it and once it happens it's too late.

You would've think that there's some sort of hint that reminds me that I'm growing up, but somehow I managed to miss every single one of them I guess. It doesn't help of course that I chose to stay in university to do research, which means I'm STILL a student... yikes.

Ah well, hopefully I won't be a student anymore by the end of the year. Hopefully to whole owning my own home thing is going to help me to settle in the whole "grown up" thing too. I won't count on it though.

New Year Resolution, and Jon Stewart :)

Yes, I've finally got enough time to finish my Jon Stewart Sketch. I'm staying at Pete's place this week though (which is the only reason why I finished that sketch. I don't really have a flat drawing surface in my room... hehe) so I won't be scanning that one in until... err... next few days.

Been trying to finish my report this Christmas for my research. Bloody hard to do so when it's so nice and sunny outside. But I've determined to finish it before uni starts and start actually working on my research again. Wish me luck.

Lots of new ideas for painting, especially now that I know I'll be getting an art room in our new house. :) We also bought a vacuum cleaner the other day, not to mention a bed. :) Mum decided to get us a bed for our engagement/house warming. We got this really nice colonial style bed with matching bedside cabinet. It's going to be so cool. :)

Anyway, my New Year resolutions, in no particular order:

- Finish my thesis ASAP
- Repaint the "pink room" in our new house
- Save up money for various things like a new 'puter, a new mobile (my one is slowly dying), a Wii, and "that wedding thing"
- Speaking of which, need to pick a date for the wedding too...
- Don't worry I'll try my best to make sure I still have time for my sketch/painting. :)

Firefly MMO

Okay, personally I never liked the idea of MMO. I think it's a big time waster, not to mention I just don't see the point to pretend to be someone online when I have a life in this thing called Real Life. Then I heard the news via Penny Arcade (I'm slow, I know) .

Seriosuly, that is very tempting. Especially if it's free. Heh. (I'm dead broke, see my previous post. :))

I wonder how it'd be set up though: will we be playing the characters? Or, more likely, other creature in the Firefly universe? And who/what would I be? Kaylee all the way? (Chick Geek == Chic Geek :D) Or a Kung Fu fighting companion? Or I can even be flying a ship myself? :)

Oh the possibility!

Now, here's the million dollar question: having said that the potential is there, will they make a good job of it? They say that Firefly can translate well into MMO, but we love the plot dammit! Yes the fact remains everyone has a story, and that translate well to MMO... right? I'm not too sure now actually. Will there be just a bunch of quests? Can we pick what back story we have? What's the deal?

Still, majorly excited about the news. I think I'll at least give it a try before I decided it's sucking up too much of my time. :)

Happily in our first major debt: Mortgage :D

And yes, Pete and I have purchased a house!! :D

So this is the outside of the place. Nothing too fancy. It's a 3 bedroom bungalow, more than enough for the two of us. But we got the place for a good price, not to mention we also just fell in love with that place! We've been through a few other place before we came ot this one.

At first when we drove passed, we didn't think much of it. We just thought ah well, it's in good condition and got potential. And then we stepped in...

Pete and I pretty much just fell in love with the place. It's everything we what it to be. It's a charming little bungalow. All the art deco details are there, right down to the art deco brass door handle. Hard wood floor just begging to be polished and unveiled from those aged carpet. The back yard is a decent size yard, with enough space for BBQ and our usual socialising. But best of all: TWO fireplaces! I've always wanted a place with a fireplace, and not only do I get a gas fire in dining (nice and efficient and pretty much hassle free), I also get a real wood fire in the lounge! How funky is that?

Don't worry the mint green exterior is going soon. Just a matter of time. Pete and I are still deciding what colour to paint it. He wants lavender, I want to paint it chocolate! But I think so far we both think it's still possible we'll paint it in another colour all together. Right now white with dark green trim is actually winning too. We shall see.

It took me all the self retrain I have to wait til it's finalised to post this entry. :) We just went unconditional this afternoon. Move in date is set at 15th Feb at the moment (after consulting the Chinese calendar and all. Dad is really excited about this palce too, but he said since it's a big step, he wants us to do it properly... the Chinese way. :))

Those in Auckland: house warming will be soon after that. I can hardly wait!

Backto reality...

Yup, theory didn't work, back in square one. Yadda yadda.

Just kinda down again, especially since I have just another 2 weeks here to try to get as much done as I can... and I was hoping I can finish the meat of my research here. No such luck...

At least by process of elimination I now know what doesn't work and just focus on the rest of the gizillian possible solution.

Hopefully something will surface soon... fingers crossed.

Breakthrough!

Okay, yesterday I was all hyper because of my brilliant idea... which work to SOME extent but not really... but it's all good: it also proves that time frequency is more flexible that Gabor logons in matching pursuit... kinda. :P

So, this week (today and tomorrow really) I'm trying my best to try to get as much coding done as I can... I think I'll stick with my idea of actually using the blobs, but with some changes (like trying to take advantage of the fact that TFD is more flexible)...

Wish me luck. I'm hoping by this weekend I have some pretty good looking results. :P But then again I say that week...