Last Sunday, while my parents and I paid a visit to Malaysia's IKEA outlet in Mutiara Damansara, I get to take a look for the first time this unusual TV set in the electronics section. It's the Philips Cinema 21:9, a ludicrously wide LCD TV with 2.39:1 aspect ratio, the ratio used on more high-budget cinematic movies. The main premise -- or dare I say it, gimmick -- is so that, finally, we don't have to deal with those irritating black bars on top and bottom of the screen when viewed in both SD- and HDTV. (I know, Philips also has that "Ambilight" technology gimmick, but that's a different story.)

It's not the first time I heard about this TV set. The first time I heard about it was around June, after hearing about Philips's promo ad called "Carousel", which can be viewed here: [link] or if you prefer, just watch it in YouTube: [link]

I've seen that TV set myself with my own eyes, and it does look impressive. Movie previews shown on both this TV and another Philips TV with a more common 16:9 aspect ratio shows the difference: While the 16:9 TV reveals the black bars necessary to fit the movie within the confines of the picture, the Cinema 21:9 did eliminate these bars altogether. But do you think it's worth the money just for that? Was it worth the trouble to buy such a TV set just so that your favorite movie can finally be fitted into the entire screen without distortions and those black bars?

And I noticed a problem, too: Movies shot in the less-wide 1.85:1 aspect ratio would look ridiculous, with the top and bottom portion of the film got cropped-out when shown on Cinema 21:9. One of the movie previews shown just happens to be Ice Age 2, a 1.85:1-proportioned movie... which might not look so bad. But, unless if Cinema 21:9 also has a feature that allows us to watch in normal 16:9, movies with opening credits placed near the top and bottom borders of the 1.85:1 aspect ratio will have some of those credits cropped out.

I think the Cinema 21:9 would be a moviepile's dream come true, which is obviously what Philips is marketing for. But for the rest of us like me, I think we're better off sticking to the more traditional 16:9 (or 4:3 for the old-fashioned) TV sets.

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Well, my parents and I still have not done yet in our slow (and tiring) process of moving our furniture one-by-one to our new house. My parents have already brought-in a large number of their book collections to our new house. Currently, we've only moved about 1/5 of our personal belongings there, not including some new furniture we've bought specifically for our new house. (And we might have to abandon a few other stuff, too, because we can only stuff-in so much into our new house.) Soon, we'll be carrying more stuff as well, such as our TV set, my electronic piano, etc.... Before the time comes for my computer to be moved as well, I think I should type this entry early.

Our new house is doing great. The living room is mostly complete, with some items missing (like our TV set), and the dining area is still nothing more than just a carpet, missing a table and a set of chairs. The kitchen is mostly ready, with only the obligatory refrigerator not installed yet. And our bedrooms... If we move-in now, we would have to sleep on the floor!

And our new housing area still doesn't have a telephone line yet. Once we've permanently moved in, I might not be able to access the Internet for a while by then, maybe weeks or months. In worse case, I might not even able to celebrate Christmas and 2010 new year celebration with y'all. That's why I wanted to post this entry early. I don't know exactly when we'll finally move-in, but most likely, it'll be sometime at the end of this December.

I will try to update again, once I get more updates with our current situation.

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Okay. After returning back from Sarawak a week ago, I was meaning to immediately write in my journal how awesome my experience had been in Kuching, Sarawak, traveling around places and such. Instead, my busy schedule had only gotten worse.

See, my parents still need to inspect our soon-to-be new house before our "official" moving day at the end of this December. This is important because we need to watch over those workers as they slowly renovate our house, making sure that they don't accidentally screw-up while in the job. In the weekdays, my father needs to go to work as usual, so he's unable to accompany my mother while she's inspecting that house. My mother doesn't want to be alone, so I have to take my father's place. Which means I'm having to leave our current house -- and away from my computer and the Internet -- every weekdays.

It's maddening!

I do hardly anything at all while being there, besides occasionally helping my mother do some stuff like carrying a few things around the house. My presence there is mainly just to accompany my mother, keeping her from feeling too lonely as she inspects the house. Most of the time, I only sit there while messing around with my PSP and DS, which luckily I always carry them around as I travel, to let the time passing by. We usually don't return back home (back to our current house) until sunset.

So, for the moment, I'm afraid that I can't be online as often as I usually can. Another bad news, my father just told me that there are no phone lines yet in that housing estate where our new house is located. So it's doubtful whether or not I'll be able to find a way to access the Internet after moving there. Only time can tell. But hopefully, I'll be able to find a solution by then.

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Well, this is probably the best excuse why I haven't been posting much art lately...

It has been confirmed that my parents and I will be moving to that new house we've purchased on this December at the end of this year. We haven't completely moved-in yet; until then, we'll be constantly busy preparing this new house, from fixing new curtains to fixing new ceiling lights. It's tiring, but until we move on this December, I'll have to deal with traveling back and forth between our current house and our new house within this period. I'm not sure if I'll be able to access the Internet there... Until then, let's not worry about this yet, but hopefully, I'm sure I'll be able to try to find a way to access the Internet from there.

Tomorrow, on October 22nd, my parents and I will be traveling to Penang Island for a 1-2-night stay there, to attend one of my cousin's wedding party held in Kedah on the next day.

And on October 25th, my parents and I will be flying to Kuching, Sarawak, for 3 nights. Of all states in Malaysia, I haven't traveled to Sarawak, the biggest state in Malaysia, yet, so I'm taking this chance.

Oh, and October 27th is my 25th birthday. (And yes, I'll be celebrating my birthday in Sarawak.)

Update: My parents corrected me during the trip, so I wasn't able to correct this journal. Actually, I don't go to Kuching on this 25th. It's on this 27th, exactly right on the same day as my birthday. Anyway, now that I've returned home for a short while, I'll be taking this time to prepare myself for that trip to Kuching.

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Today, while returning home from the mall with my mother, I saw a dead dog beside the street.

ZOMG. A dead motherfucking dog. I hope I don't get any more bad luck today.

According to my mother, it may have died since yesterday. She had seen that same dead dog on that same exact spot yesterday, while driving around the street as usual.

It appears that Seto Kaiba had smiled again...

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Please buy and download my song: [link]
New song: Revolution

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