The Silent Room

I want moar Kara no Kyoukai plsthx.

It’s September again, and my birthday is on the 16th. I guess it’s time for me to put out a shameless post and drop you some big hints on what I want when I turn 23 later this month.

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Altec Lansing FX5051 5.1 Speakers

I’ve been using the same old 4.1 speakers since 1999, and since the past couple of months, the left channel has gone wonky.

So yeah, I need to replace my speakers for a long time already, but it’s been a low-priority item, I’ve been delaying its replacement year after year in favor of upgrading the PC. A brand new set of speakers would be great, heheh. Surround speakers are nice, especially these days when anime is comes in 5.1 audio and games that support surround sound.

I’ve been eying quite a number of different brands of surround speakers, but none of which really caught my interest except Altecs. Probably due to my fondness of the VS4121 model. It looks and sounds nice for a value-buy 2.1 speaker. Really.

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KOSS QZ99 Noise-Cancellation Headphones

I own a KOSS UR-20 headphone which I bought for RM140 back in 2003. Actually, it still works great, but years of wear and tear have caused some of the plastic headpiece to break here and there, which, over the years, I’ve patched together with copious amounts of tape. Still, it keeps falling apart. I figured it’s time for it to retire from active service and that I should have a new pair of KOSS headphones. Yes, I just gave testimony to just how awesome a KOSS product is.

You might ask, why would I favor bulky cans like these over the discreet IEMs? Well, I already do have a set of IEMs. Mylar XBi’s, to be exact. They sound great, and are also discreet for use outdoors. But bulky cans have one advantage – they knock your brains out. Couple that with noise cancellation and you got a monster funneling awesome sounds into your head.

Yeah, that’s exactly what I want.

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Sony HVL-F58AM Flash unit

Forget the lengthy model number, Alpha males just call it the F58 flash. Ah yes, I forgot to mention – I now own a Sony A200 dSLR :D Yes, after years of hesitation and longing, I finally saved up enough and settled on a make that fits my needs.

I’ll write about that one another day, but yeah, the flash comes first.

The F58 is an awesome flash because unlike other flashguns, it can swing sideways! I tested Albert’s unit the other day and I thought it was absolutely fantastic. On top of that, the full-power recharge time was so fast, it’s got a strobing mode that can fire the flash up to 100Hz!

I want one of these, period.

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Sigma 10-20mm f4-5.6

Wide lenses are great. Having people buy them for me is even better. Although I’m currently quite happy gonig around shooting with my Sigma 30mm f1.4, sometimes, you just wanna go wide. REALLY wide :D I think street price should be around RM1300 or so. It’ll probably be cheaper to get it online. Frankly speaking, I’ve grown kinda bored of shooting at telephoto.

I mean, I’ve been shooting at spectacular lengths with the Panasonic FZ30 and Canon S3IS, but to get that crazy range, the cameras sacrifice that wide angle range. That kinda sucks when you’re trying to shoot a wide expanse of scenery or a large group photo. I kid you not.

That’s why I was kind of enjoying the 18mm on the kit lens that came with the A200, but I figured if I wanted to go wide, I may as well go all the way.

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Also on my wishlist, is that I want petrol prices to come down, and along with it the price of everything else, hopefully also including the stuff I mentioned above. If Anwar forming the government and becoming PM can bring forth such an event, then let him rise up the ranks come 16th September :D

I bet it’ll be an amusing birthday for me to look forward to.