Looking Back At 2008
Another year has come and gone, so I guess it's time for the obligatory look back at the highs and lows of the year for me.
Where to begin? Work was a major drag since it required such demanding hours of my life that any break I could get was a Godsend. On the upside, I made a killing in over-time income which was much needed to support myself and the wife. One of my goals for 2009 is to win that best dressed contest at the company annual dinner since I was only a runner up last year!
And how about married life? Believe me when I say over a year in that your gonna have to make changes to your life once your sharing it with someone else. Don't think you can maintain your old life style and daily routines. Believe me, I've tried! Just remember to spend time with your partner and try to share your interests as well, and hopefully it will be all good.
One of the highlights of the year was definitely the week long vacation to KL we took for our 1st year wedding anniversary. Our accommodations in KL were crap, but everything else was good. Went to Genting Highlands and actually got to enjoy the atmosphere this time. Met up with my buddy Joe for a wrestling chat that now branches into MMA, and I got to visit one of the XL Shop branches.
Ah XL Shop. "The Poison" as it's referred to by it's forum visitors due to them bringing in so much good stuff that you can't help but spend your money on them. I think I spent at least 4k ordering stuff from them last year. For those not in the know, they are a toy store based in KL that sells various toys and figurines from anime and western movies and other collectables. I mostly have a weakness for Kaiyodo's Revoltech and Max Factory's Figma line of action figures. An expensive hobby for sure, but at least I'm not so addicted to the point of spending rm500 on a Dark Knight Joker figure by Hot Toys. I have my limits even though some of the more pricey stuff is really tempting (1:1 scale replica of Hellboy's gun, anyone?).
On the subject of hobbies, my interest in pro-wrestling was probably at an all time low last year. Sure I still followed the internet reports and online results, and I downloaded a ton of shows from the US, Japan and Mexico, but never really got around to watching them unless I needed to empty out my hard disk. Even watching WWE on Astro came to a point where I feel I wasn't missing much if I missed an episode or two. But the PPVs were mostly good. I did pick up an interest in Mexican lucha libre though, following the mostly WWE-like AAA promotion. I should probably check out CMLL since it's highly regarded as the better product but lacking in the storyline department.
MMA was mostly hit and miss since the UFC doesn't go all out on their PPV cards save for the main events, and nothing of note came out of Japan since the death of PRIDE FC and K1/DREAM didn't interest me all that much.
My other hobby of music saw a resurgence in my interest in industrial metal, with bands like Black Comedy and Megahertz playing heavilly in my CD player throughtout the year. The new Slipknot, Trivium and Mudvayne albums were all rather dissapointing, but there was a lot of new blood to fill the void like Scamp! (my pick for heaviest sounding album of the year), Dagoba and Bleed the Sky. Heck, I even managed to get into some of the older bands like Iron Maiden and Ministry. I'm still looking to get an electric bass guitar too.
Of course I've also downloaded a ton of fan-subbed anime that I haven't gotten around to watching, mostly cause I already know what happens in the series due to reading blogs all over the net. Due to this, I find it better to download a whole series, then watch through the whole thing later once I forget most of what happens so that I can still enjoy it. Code Geass R2 and Kannagi are high on the must watch list at the moment. I recently signed up an account at Myanimelist.net under the moniker 6six6, so look me up if you have an account there to keep up with what I'm watching.
Looking ahead to 2009, I know I'm in for another season of Hell on Earth once the work project starts up again in a few months, but the priority is to make as much income as I can, so yeah, greed motivates. Especially now that the missus has got it in her head that we should start thinking of whipping out the genetic jackhammer complete the whole marriage circle by bringing in the next generation of Extreme into this world!
Happy New Year!
Where to begin? Work was a major drag since it required such demanding hours of my life that any break I could get was a Godsend. On the upside, I made a killing in over-time income which was much needed to support myself and the wife. One of my goals for 2009 is to win that best dressed contest at the company annual dinner since I was only a runner up last year!
And how about married life? Believe me when I say over a year in that your gonna have to make changes to your life once your sharing it with someone else. Don't think you can maintain your old life style and daily routines. Believe me, I've tried! Just remember to spend time with your partner and try to share your interests as well, and hopefully it will be all good.
One of the highlights of the year was definitely the week long vacation to KL we took for our 1st year wedding anniversary. Our accommodations in KL were crap, but everything else was good. Went to Genting Highlands and actually got to enjoy the atmosphere this time. Met up with my buddy Joe for a wrestling chat that now branches into MMA, and I got to visit one of the XL Shop branches.
Ah XL Shop. "The Poison" as it's referred to by it's forum visitors due to them bringing in so much good stuff that you can't help but spend your money on them. I think I spent at least 4k ordering stuff from them last year. For those not in the know, they are a toy store based in KL that sells various toys and figurines from anime and western movies and other collectables. I mostly have a weakness for Kaiyodo's Revoltech and Max Factory's Figma line of action figures. An expensive hobby for sure, but at least I'm not so addicted to the point of spending rm500 on a Dark Knight Joker figure by Hot Toys. I have my limits even though some of the more pricey stuff is really tempting (1:1 scale replica of Hellboy's gun, anyone?).
On the subject of hobbies, my interest in pro-wrestling was probably at an all time low last year. Sure I still followed the internet reports and online results, and I downloaded a ton of shows from the US, Japan and Mexico, but never really got around to watching them unless I needed to empty out my hard disk. Even watching WWE on Astro came to a point where I feel I wasn't missing much if I missed an episode or two. But the PPVs were mostly good. I did pick up an interest in Mexican lucha libre though, following the mostly WWE-like AAA promotion. I should probably check out CMLL since it's highly regarded as the better product but lacking in the storyline department.
MMA was mostly hit and miss since the UFC doesn't go all out on their PPV cards save for the main events, and nothing of note came out of Japan since the death of PRIDE FC and K1/DREAM didn't interest me all that much.
My other hobby of music saw a resurgence in my interest in industrial metal, with bands like Black Comedy and Megahertz playing heavilly in my CD player throughtout the year. The new Slipknot, Trivium and Mudvayne albums were all rather dissapointing, but there was a lot of new blood to fill the void like Scamp! (my pick for heaviest sounding album of the year), Dagoba and Bleed the Sky. Heck, I even managed to get into some of the older bands like Iron Maiden and Ministry. I'm still looking to get an electric bass guitar too.
Of course I've also downloaded a ton of fan-subbed anime that I haven't gotten around to watching, mostly cause I already know what happens in the series due to reading blogs all over the net. Due to this, I find it better to download a whole series, then watch through the whole thing later once I forget most of what happens so that I can still enjoy it. Code Geass R2 and Kannagi are high on the must watch list at the moment. I recently signed up an account at Myanimelist.net under the moniker 6six6, so look me up if you have an account there to keep up with what I'm watching.
Looking ahead to 2009, I know I'm in for another season of Hell on Earth once the work project starts up again in a few months, but the priority is to make as much income as I can, so yeah, greed motivates. Especially now that the missus has got it in her head that we should start thinking of whipping out the genetic jackhammer complete the whole marriage circle by bringing in the next generation of Extreme into this world!
Happy New Year!