Some rants

Thinking of getting a new phone, I mean which one to get. Apparently, the sony service people are really screwed. The previous time, they repaired the phone under the condition they wanted to void the warranty. We didn't really have a choice; yeps so. we voided it and we thought they would do a good job fixing the problem, which was supposed to be water or whatever in the phone. Okay. and now, like recently I mean, my phone blacked out again, and it seems to be the same problem. My dad took it to the same place and they were like " oh sorry the last time we didn't really fixed it but it was temporary making it workonly ". as in you can't fix it but you can only make it work temporary. and they void the warranty? now we gotta pay 500 bucks for a repair. screwed up people.

not that im mad, im need to act angry, but im beaming with joy cause i can decide on a new phone. ain't I evil? Nah not realy, but yeah it's not my fault about the water thing. I meanhow did water ever go into my phone. I don't remember playing quadrapop while swimming or whatever. Really! it's not my fault.

Maybe it's San Andreas fault. A fault that is ever longer than anything, 1300KM long, with one plate at 5cm/year and the other at 6cm/year. What was it? North american plate and pacific plate? Uggh i certainly remember useless info. What the. Nevermind.

Yepps.

Oh and I forgot what I wanted to blog about.

Yeps okay to bore people again. the scariest word that starts with S. Suuuuuuccccc. Nah, School. Oh and tommorow theres this stupid CHINESE mock exam. I mean, really it makes me really want to mock the school. Chinese, please don't let us waste our time on chinese. I mean, 4 hours of chinese lessons every week and my attention span for chinese is no more than several minutes per lesson. And that's great already. please get this frigging thing over, give me my S for Alevel chinese and get it done with. I don't really have anything against this frigging chinese thing, but maybe it's because I actually thought it was OVER and DONE WITH it after olevels. I thought never will I be asked to write anything chinese for that matter. And gross, chinese words makes my pen bleed in pain. Not that I hate it too much, it's just tht 4 years of not actually doing any chinese at all makes my brain rot at the thought of it. And now the school's testing my limits giving us with a 3 hours mock paper. Nice one, at the expense of an afternoon of rest and joy and fun. Yes. now sorrow and agony. I have to face this crap tommorow. Chinese songs are cool, shows are fab, but NOT writing compo and comprehension. They hurt my brain damnit.

Okay rant over.

Actually I'm feeling fluish all over. Now, i think it's the rain, it's like some rheumetism (don't know how to spell) that acts on my brain. Maybe it's bcos I feel like sleeping urgh.Anyway school was pretty errr bore today. Oh and I passed chem test, what a fluke. Wasn't really flying colours because if colours could fly the sky wouldn't be only one colour duh.

Yeps, was actally flipping through the newpaper and I saw "ahh one controversial topic which I like alot". Downloading of anime. teenagers feel they have the right to download and stuff. Let me express my views (or rather rants) on this case.

Firstly. I make my stand clear, Downloading might be wrong, it might be illegal, but it takes two hands to clap and for certain matters, I feel that downloading is acceptable. And to a very large extent.

Take the anime scene for example. It was fine and things were really copacetic to begin with. Out of the blue, some company like ODEX came in and decided to "make money" out of this sudden interest or boom in the market for anime. Which I feel is very wrong! They can't come in, take an industry and turn it's back on how that industry became in demand in the first place. Think of it this way, internet made anime popular. Convinience made anime accessible. If in the first place anime was only avaliable on DVD/VCDS the number people that would actually purchase CD by CD would really be miserable. There still will be a fanbase, I agree, but certainly not as much. I can say there will be drastic difference. Not to mention, like a huge percentile of people that do watch anime in some form or another will never have gotten to know anime without the internet. The origin of anime in singapore, is the net. Not the television, not ODEX or rather, VCDS. Maybe the manga, and the net.

The net has caused anime fanbase in SG to grow to such a great height, and now what such companies are doing are like son or daughters turning their back on their parents. Do they have the right, come in and license something for their own benefit? It is true that they have gained rights from Japanese companies to actually use their products or rather (IP, intellectual property). but these Jpn companies only have to cater to their own market to survive. I mean, not everything in Jpn gets imported out. For example, they have their own range of handphones and they survive fine with just their own market. And besides, the free popularity of animes have led to more business in Anime-related products. Naruto mechandise is certainly one great source of income for these companies in Japan. They do not really have to sell the show itself to make money. It is the mechandise and fan stuff that earns most of the money! By taking away popularity (and lets assume ODEX literally bans all downlods on bleach on naruto). How much would it actually HURT it's popularity. Imagine if only the minority watch bleach and naruto due to them only being able to purchase VCDS, what would happen? What would happen to the sales of the merchandise?? Plummet? Yeps, bingo!

And by fining people who download, it certainly hints stupidity in these companies. If they take forever to keep up with what the japanese are broadcasting, then how long do fans have to wait. Quality aside ( i mean, people have complained enough about that aspect). I mean, who likes to wait one more year or so for the latest naruto episode that is shown to in japan today? I mean, it's the age of globlisation, and do we really have to LAG behind by a year or so just because we have to cater to the greedy wants of earning revenue by such companies. Companies who try to act great and monopolise a certain industry? By doing things by force, tracking down on downloadings, it's not going to get fans to be really enjoy buying their products. I mean people either reluctently buy or boycott the brand. It isn't a really pleasant situation here. Getting people angry and feeling restricted is certainly not really going to help things. And fining people for compensation is really idiotic. And if im gonna wait one more year to watch sakuraversus sasori, it is much easier to give up on watching naruto all together, rather than buy out-dated stuff.

Imagine this, games etc are all well synchronized with the current series in japan. If a game is released with all new characters and stuff while singapore is lagging one year or even a few months behind, it's not going to be pleasant at ALL for fans. Not to mention, people will actually hate such companies being forceful and not using their brain at all.

Downloading may be wrong when what you're downloading is conviniently avaliable in stores. Thats when you choose to download. but there are many circumstances whereby the downloaded product have alot better quality that what you can buy. Fansubs, and people running them do actually put in alot effort. And they're doing it for free. The translation is alot more accurate compared to those translated by people these companies employ ( I do not have concrete evidence and I'm assuming). Fansubs are done by people who are really INTO these series, more passion, more footnotes, more emotion into these works actually makes it more pleasant to watch. ANd they're doing this for free? Why can't these rotten adults at such companies understand? Fansubs are an art, a work of feelins and emotions. Just for the sake of money, ruining culture and art is very wrong. and in this case, fansubs are actually part of internet culture.

I urge people not to sterotype downloading. Not to get brainwashed by the media and the government telling us stealing Ip is wrong. It can be rightful in certain cases, especially this.

And yes, here's an analogy. Once upon a time in this deserted village. People lived happily as there were free banana trees with free for all bananas grown and left by people of another land. They belonged to other people, but those people never made noise about villagers taking those bananas for free. All of a sudden, a group of greedy people decided to take advantage of the situation. Making pacts with these foriegn people, they decided to ban villagers from taking bananas for free, and punishing them. At the same time, imposing a cost on people who want bananas. Taking advantage of that people actually are used to getting free bananas, they capitalizize on that, and turn it into a money making scheme. Very evil.


Ah and anyway Im going to continue another time, feeling tired.