I love my iPod Mini

It keeps me sane on the MRT when I'm surrounded by a mass of people. The music forms an invisible barrier as if I'm not actually cramped among all those plebeians.

Temptation

I have succumbed to the lure of the iPod mini.....btw, it's BLUE, not pink. I would NEVER carry a PINK ipod mini.

Jim-boy here won the iPod mini for his design of the MAC-usergroup webpage and I can't remember what the webpage is so too bad. And they have onsold it to me. So now I'm broke and I can't buy my digital camera for Christmas and it's all Jimmy's and Liyann's fault.

It's a blue 4 GB iPod mini. It doesn't do radio unfortunately nor has a voice recorder. But I figure, how often do I use that? Radio maybe...but not voice recorder - I've got a dedicated one in the office anyway which I freaking spent $120 on. Waste of money.

I saw the iRiver one that was going for $688. That was pretty good. It had a line in and microphone in which means that if you pirate recordings in concerts and all that you can plug in a microphone direct and record DIRECTLY into MP3 in a bitrate of your choice ranging from 64 kbps to 320 kbps. That is DEFINITELY an MD killer. I was very tempted to buy it, but it was rather big and at $688 a bit more than what I would like to pay. But I would highly recommend it to people such as Xuhao who was looking for something to record his voice lessons into. I've read reviews that the sound quality is also first rate.

The screen is also colour btw, and it can store jpegs like PROPERLY unlike the crappy iPod Photo.

Anyway, what made me decide on the overpriced iPod mini (yes, it's OVERPRICED in comparison to the iPod) was the fact that if I were to put the ipod in my shirt pocket while I go to work, I would look like an Ah Beng or Phua Chu Kang with those huge organisers in their shirt pockets. I need something less obtrusive. And iPod Mini fits the bill. Plus I guess I don't have THAT many songs, and I don't need to spend THAT much money for a music device.

Dropping dead like flies

I'm really about to drop dead right now.

Thursday:
9.30 am -12.50 pm- reach work.
12.50 pm - eat 10 min lunch
1 pm - start work
7.30 pm - go chorale practice
10 pm - return to work
5.30 am - leave work

Friday
8 am - leave for work
1 pm - 10 min lunch
8 pm - 10 min dinner
12 am - still working.

Ode to Coffee

Oh Coffee, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Thou transformest this grumpy old man into a 17 year old hyperactive teen.

Thou transformest my brain from a plodding Proton Saga to a turbocharged BMW Z4.

Thou maketh me a superblogger in the morning.

I love thy creamy head that is remniscent of the head on a pint of beer.

Thy soothing aroma as you flow out from that $2500 coffee machine that resides on the 30th floor of my office that calms the nerves and prepares me for the onslaught that is to come during the working day.

Thy slightly bitter aftertaste after your silky and creamy body flows down my throat into my ever expanding and cavernous stomach that Cartman can be proud of.

Thy nerve clogging properties that likely causeth me a heart attack at 30 before I make boss and thereby condemning me to die before I ever get laid.

Ok. The initial surge of 10 mins ago has worn out. Now I don't love thee anymore. Back to work.

Demands

It seems that coincidentally, a LOT of ppl are blogging about Creative's marketing blitz.

Red-rapture has bought a Zen Micro thing at some discounted price. Unfortunately she refuses to reveal the price and worse, she maxed out her lubangs to get the discounted price. Damn.

Anyway, now that so many friends have new TOYS, I shall DEMAND that they all bring it this Saturday so that I may play with them and have my tech thrills vicariously through their purchases.

So, jchrys is to bring his Nikon D70, and red-rapture is to bring her new-fangled Zen toy so that I may ogle at it and play with it. I still think it's ugly as hell though.

I DEMAND DEMAND DEMAND DEMAND DEMAND!!!!!!!

ok ok...*please*????

Am seriously considering going to the Creative sale this weekend. But having done a preliminary search on Google and finding out that the queue last year was 10,000 people and snaked some 1 km and took some 6 hours to get in and that some people queued up 22 hours before the opening, I am now having serious doubts. I hate queuing. Queueing is for plebeians/peasants/serfs/peons. But what to do? I'm a cheapskate and sucker for tech bargains.

This is a sign that I've been staying in Singapore wayyyyyyyy too long.

I am STILL at work.

Ramblings

Fatso keeps asking me to update.

I have found a new love. It's name is...Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War!!!!!

While others eg popartgirl's boyfriend and bimbo alto's boyfriend are busy blasting each other with Halo 2, unfortunately I have neither an XBox nor XBox live! nor broadband. So I'm content blasting Orcs, Eldars and Chaos Marines. I think it's a feeling of power when my missile turrets blast into the middle of an orc swarm and I see them flying all over into the water and then dying. The video cut scenes are really good. It’s true what they say. Power corrupts, and absolute power gives a man an erection. How else do you explain the unexplainable need for men to have sweet young things as mistresses? It’s a power thing that at 40+, they can still dominate sweet young things of 20+. Can you say Vietnam bride?

Creative has launched the Zen Micro and there were some seriously biased reports in the newspaper today the pros of the Creative device. It is launching a US$100million marketing blitz to topple the iPod. I think it’s going to be a huge failure.

1. The device is more expensive than the iPod mini. If you thought the iPod mini was overpriced at $458 when the iPod goes for $579, the bloody Zen Micro goes for $529. Talk about rip off.

2. The device doesn’t do iTunes. I wonder how it syncs music. With iTunes, you update your music list, and your iPod is updated automatically. Which is what draws a lot of customers to iPod. Simplicity and ease of use. If you had to continually manually drag files onto the device it will put people off to have to update 2 playlists at the same time. It doesn’t even do AAC. I know it’s proprietary and all that, but when there’s a market leader, it’s dumb not to at least make your device compatible with it. Can you say…Betamax, Memory Stick and ATRAC3? In place of AAC it supports WMA…I like WMA over MP3 and all, but I doubt WMA is a market standard. It sounds like the DVD-R and DVD+R war all over again.

3. The device is bulkier than the iPod mini.

4. The device offers nothing above the iPod mini nor the iPod save for the voice recorder and FM radio. It should offer a line in and a microphone port and the ability to record directly into a sound format and quality of the user’s choice. Then at least it would attract all the MD users.

5. It doesn’t have the cool and hip factor – it’s ugly.

So I ask, how can you sell something that in some ways doesn’t work as well as the market leader, doesn’t look half as cool as the market leader, is bigger and to top it off, costs MORE???? I don’t get it.

If this product succeeds, then the marketing people deserve a huge bonus.

Sweet Home Malaysia

Ok I'm back at home - long weekend.

The last week at work has been extremely busy. It must be with my move to Tampines. Since I moved, I've worked a couple of hours each weekend. On Tuesday I went home at 2.30 am, packed for my wednesday trip home until 3.30 am, woke up at 5.30 am, and got to work at 6.45 am.

I'm shocked that there are actually a lot of ppl on the MRT at 6.10 am in the morning!!!!!

So anyway I'm now on a well deserved break at home stuffing my face at home while my mom nags in the background that I must have put on 10 kg or something.

oh well.

I want an ipod. I want to sell my pocket pc. It's crap and I never use it. Anyone want a Dell Axim for sale?

Sophistication

I realise I blog about completely inane things. I should act my ahem...age.....and blog about *serious* stuff...like you know....oh about the latest US elections. The impending economic crash in the US. The rise of China. The fall of Iraq. The effect of the raising of the Fed rates on the economic growth in Singapore. Yah. you know, SOPHISTICATED topics.

Problem is, I couldn't give a toss. As far as I'm concerned Bush should've choked on his pretzel when he had the chance.

Hm...I'm never gonna become a witty and sophisticated thinker. When I borrow books I go for the following:

1. Legal thrillers (escapist mar)
2. Medical thrillers
3. Fantasy books that my friends have read in Primary 3 like dragonlance.
4. Comics like X-men and Marvel superheroes (thanks for the comic Fats! "Batman" is freaky...")

And my choice of movies go like this, in the following order of preference:
1. Fantasy/Scifi
2. Bimbo high school shows like Legally Blonde and Harold and Kumar.

This is bad. I need intellectual stimulation. I picked up War and Peace by Tolstoy from the library, read 10 pages on the MRT and fell asleep.

"Would you like some tea m'dear?"
"Oh! Why, how quaint and charming!"
"I say my good man, Napoleon's a right bastard, don't you think?"
"Oh, Nicola, we should go ride on our ponies today....it IS such a fine day, don't you think?"

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Ok. I'm at work. It's 11.30pm. I need a break. Therefore I blog. I've got a TON of work. I swear I wun be able to go home tonight.....

Don't understand parents

Sometimes I dun get parents. Usually, when you want to buy something, they go: "har???? So expensive????? Why can't you just buy the cheapest one????"

I have no digital camera. I want to buy one. My parents are going to my brother's convocation in Melbourne in December. I thought a Panasonic FZ3 would be good - 12x ultra zoom and all. I'm paying btw.

So this conversation takes place this afternoon via telephone:

(I'm paraphrasing)

Mum: Simi?
Me: So should I get a new camera that you can use for (brother's name)'s convo?
Mum: Oh. No need lah we can use his Ixus 330 (this old 2 megapixel camera which takes very good pics)
Me: You need ultra zoom right so that can take pics of the stage
Mum: Huh? Haiyah you better talk to your dad lah I dunno what you're talking about. What brand is it?
Me: Panasonic
Mum: Huh??? They make cameras meh?
Me: er yeah...the lens is Leica...
Mum: Never heard of it..anyway you call back tonight speak to your dad lah.
Me: ok

later on:

Dad via sms: "Pl call back to discuss camera. Why don't you buy the higher end Nikon one I'll pay for it you can use"

Me thinking....hm...digital SLR....sounds good....but so expensive...for what....

I call: "Why you want to get the digital SLR? Expensive you know"
Dad: "But it's good what. Panasonic makes cameras meh?"
Me: "er yah...it's got a Leica lens"
Dad: "Maybe they don't know how to fit the lens properly into the camera"
Me: "errrrr"
Dad: "Is there a higher end one by Nikon / Canon?
Me: "there's one by Canon but the pictures suck."
Dad: "oh ok. What about those that you can change lens one?"
Me: "Digital SLR lah"
Dad: "Yeah"
Me: "Expensive lah."
Dad: "How much is the Panasonic one?"
Me: "$650+"
Dad: "Oh like that is it. Ok that's not very expensive. Oklor just buy and try try."
Me thinking to myself: "huh? try try? gee....that's good advice...."

Digital SLR...hm....I think it's wasted in my untalented hands lah. Requires too much brainpower.

I guess I shall get the Panasonic one then. Now....FZ3 or FZ20..hmmm......

The OC-ish gang

Going out with my colleagues is an expensive affair. I don't really like to do it simply because it costs so much money. Many of them, especially those educated overseas, come from rich backgrounds and would think nothing of, say, spending $1000 or more of their monthly salary on an LV handbag, going for spa treatments at a few hundred bucks a pop and the like. It's not as if we are making a ton of money - our salary after taking into account state deductions amount to about $2800. Although above average, it's not like we're rolling in it. I suppose however that many of them don't have to do the following:

1. pay rent and utilities and food
2. give parents money
3. save for a rainy day (can you say: Trust fund? or Inheritance?)

And if not, I suppose disposable income is high.

This month, 2 of my colleagues are having their birthdays. To "celebrate", one of my other colleagues suggest we go out for dinner. Fine. Dinner where? Oh, at some uppity restaurant in a 5 star hotel. Sigh. It's a lose lose thing. If I don't go, I'm anti social. If I go, it freaking burns a hole in my pocket.

Among other things, we "had to have" lobster noodles. Other stuff were scallops, half a duck and garoupa fish.

I haven't seen the bill yet, but I know it's going to add up to at least $60 a head. There were 5 of us. 2 of them won't be paying 'cos it's their birthday. That means it's going to add up to $100 each. That is VERY expensive in my books for something that will pass through your bowels in 12 hours. Expensive stool that's what I say. And I couldn't jolly well have said "can we order something cheaper or not?!!!?!?!!?!" or "can we go somewhere cheaper?!?!!!!?".

So there we are. I'm a little annoyed at spending money unneccessarily. But it's one of the necessary evils of having wealthy colleagues. Me? I'm happy eating at hawker centres and street food (but I don't like food courts). If I'm in a good mood, a cafe is a good place at 10+ a pop. That's already a treat considering the fact that up till 1994, my family never ate out, and McDonald's was a treat once in a blue moon. It's just not in my blood / upbringing to be spending that kind of money to fill my already cavernous stomach.

Later today we are going to visit the-one-with-the-operated-ankle-who-thought-he-might-die-from-a-tiny-operation-on-his-ankle. I HOPE I dun get dua-ed by the bimbo alto. I think we should be having pizza for dinner. Good stuff.

Best Dinner in a Long While

Today I had just about the best dinner I had in a long long while. My friend managed to drag me to Morton's of Chicago at the Oriental Hotel at City Hall. On weekdays, they have this promotion where you can get a Martini (Chocolate or Cosmopolitan) for $7.50++ and you get complimentary Filet Mignon sandwiches. That's right. Free steak sandwiches.

The service is a bit slow, as it's not meant to be a buffet where you stuff your face on steak sandwiches - unfortunately. So they bring around a tray every 7-10 minutes or so where you take like ONE sandwich. This tiny thing which is about 150% the size of a sushi thing.

Yeah I know, I was like - gee. Steak sandwich. Big deal. Until now the only steak sandwiches I've tried are those at Subway - you know, tough fragments of meat - no big deal at all.

And then I bit into my first sandwich. I thought I died and went to heaven. If you imagine when you eat sushi - very fresh salmon - when you bite into it - how it shreds gently when you tear it away from your mouth. And how the salmon melts in your mouth. That was the texture of the sliver of steak in the sandwich. It was reddish - meaning about medium rare. But it was just about the best piece of beef I have ever eaten in my life.

All in all we managed to get 6 sandwiches within the span of half an hour - not full at all, and right now I'm high on the Martini I drank plus my friend's martini 'cos she can't drink and only went there for the free sandwiches and was there since like 5 pm munching on the delicate delights. But you want to taste it and appreciate it I guess, not stuff your face with it.

That was probably the best $8.50 (including taxes) that I've spent in a long while. Certainly better than the $25 I spent on beer and seafood for yesterday's dinner.

I think my pants are bursting.

Work Work Work

Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work
Work Work Work Work
Work Work Work Work
Work Work Work Work

and then....

more work.

I'm tired. I want to get picked up by a lesbian too ala Mr. Miyagi in yesterday's newspaper.