Wangan Midnight

This is currently the anime that is a hit with me. Although "Wangan Midnight" has already been released in 2007, I only started watching it after playing the arcade game of it. Unlike "Initial D", "Wangan Midnight" focuses heavily on top speed runs on the infamous Wangan stretch on the Shuto Expressway in Japan. The story tells Akio Asakura, a 19-year-old high school student, who during a leisurely drive in his Nissan 300ZX (Z31) with his friend Ma and two girls in the back seat encountered the 'Wangan Blackbird', a black Porsche 911 Turbo (964) driven by Tatsuya Shima, a doctor. Akio then decided to chase it down, only to be smoked by the German marque easily. Determined to become faster, he goes to the junkyard because his mechanic friend tells him he saw a wrecked Datsun 240Z (S30) just like Akio wanted. When he sees the damaged midnight blue 240Z in the junkyard, he remembers seeing this car a few years ago with a nice girl in the passenger seat. Intrigued as to why such a classic Japanese performance vehicle is about to be junked, he convinces the junkyard owner to sell it to him. The junkyard owner was told by the previous owner to scrap the car because it is cursed. He soon finds that the car is unnaturally fast due to a highly-tuned L28 engine, bored and stroked to 3.1 L and fitted with twin turbos. He also finds that the one of the car's previous owners shares his first and last name, and had died in a horrible crash on the Wangan. Every person who takes possession of the Z ends up spinning out of control and crashing, as if the car is rebelling against its driver. This gives the blue 240Z the nickname "The Devil Z". Unperturbed by the nickname and dark histroy of the car as well as against the pleas of his friends to give up driving the car, Akio restores the 240Z and bring it back to its former glorious Wangan racing days. It is worth noting that this anime not only talks about street racing, but also dwells on topics such as the technical aspects of a car and also, rare for a vehicle-heavy show, humanity.

End Of The Road

Today is the end of the road for my Sony Ericsson K300i. There is some problem with either the the charging contact point on the phone or the charger itself. Two weeks after I got the joystick problem fixed, this one came up. After much consideration, my dad said there is no point to get it fixed anymore. I am heavy-hearted to say goodbye to it, as this is my first phone that I bought with my ang-pau money nearly 5 years ago. It has been with me through thick and thin and seen my tears of joy and pain. Although its camera is lousy, it has also let me captured some of the best pictures I've taken myself (like my blog's header picture). This phone is also one tough cookie! I have dropped it numerous times and the only problems that it gave me was the charging contact point getting loose and the unresponsive joystick problem. Also, until yesterday it was still running on the original battery that came with it since day one, but it has started showing its age and I had already contemplating of replacing it with a new one already. At the end of the day, it deserves its long over-due rest and I had to finally say farewell to it. The phone is now in a display cabinet in my house, turning it into a "museum piece".

No Tomorrow

Where is my life heading to? Will I be able to find myself again?