070707 - Part 1

Saturday was a pretty eventful day for me, and I'm going to break it up into 3 posts. I need stuff to fill up for 3 days, and you wouldn't wanna read such a long post anyway.

On Friday night, Mum called me to mention that she's going down to Kulim
tomorrow to commemorate the 1 year anniversary of my great-grandmother's passing. I never wrote about it, but she died soon after my Mum's visit last year (which I wrote about in an oh-so-emo post). I agreed to go along with the condition that I needed to be back home by 4pm (find out why in Part 2!). The last time I visited my maternal side was during Chinese New Year, and hey, I can't let them think I only visit them for the red packets can I?

So we headed out at 8.30am, and the heavy rain slowed our journey as we zig-zagged through surprisingly heavy traffic for a Saturday morning. She had to run some errands first, so by the time we reached the columborium at 10am I was hobbling out of the car.

A priest was hired and while we were sitting down waiting for him to finish his chant, guess what I saw my cousin holding?

Don't be fooled! Look closer, it even has a colour screen! It's actually a Motorola phone modified into a (very, very) retro housing. It's not just an empty shell because the battery is as big as a brick. Extremely nostalgic of the good old days. Nevermind that I never had such a phone before.

I took the opportunity to take some snapshots of Mum, and here's one of the two of us:

I told her, "This angle makes your head look so small compared to mine!". And she said, "That's the point!" -_-"

I also did not miss the chance to take loads of photos of Ivan, my cute great-cousin (twice removed or something). He doesn't know me very well, but I think he has potential to be a camwhore in the future...

And how could a post about family gatherings not be complete with pictures of food? We were already halfway through before I remembered to take a snap:

To most of you that is food, but to me it's 3.5 hours of cardio. Sad.... :'(

The ride home was uncomfortable as Mum's car air-cond broke down. That retro feeling came up again as we drove through highways with the dry wind lashing across my fragile face. We were all exhausted by the time we reached Penang, but luckily I got home before 4pm coz it gave me plenty of time to rest and prepare for my aerobics class at a children's camp at 5pm.

Yup! Tomorrow you will finally be able to watch some clips of me in "Instructor" Mode! Don't bother searching YouTube now, I'm keeping it secret till tomorrow :P

Trying Out Mblogging

Posting this via mobile Gmail. But i'm limited to 1024 characters.
BORING! Recommend me a JAVA mblogging software! I'm on my way 2 Kulim
wif my mum to attend d one yr anniversary of my great grandmother's
passing.

Creativity is Energizing

I'll still be in training today, so no proper post. But here's something we did in the Creativity and Innovation training: balancing 10 nails on 1 nail head.

Self Improvement Matters

The post title is the most valuable thing in this whole post. I'm in training today and tomorrow. Will try to post some photos to go along later.

The Search Ends... Introducing the Peanut

Dubbed "the Peanut" by Innocent^^Guy, I finally bought it last night. It wasn't really an impulse buy because the deal was the best I could find. Some shops quoted me RM680 while I got it for RM599 (Mega Sale Carnival price bla bla bla).

I really liked the black front with the orange sides (reminds me of the Walkman phones), but they only had white:

I'll be reviewing the phone as I learn how to use it, but here's what I think so far:

All the reviews I read never failed to mention its great LCD screen and I agree - it's fantastic! It's as sharp and clear as most smartphones that are double its price.

It's not that big. In fact, the photo you see above is probably bigger (depending on your resolution).

The predictive text input system iTap is very good!

Camera, just like most reviews said, is sub-par. Here's an indoor pic at full resolution and quality:

The flash is half-decent. It's not as weak as those useless LEDs ("look! a white spot on your face!") but not as strong as those N95 flashes either. It's actually a coil arranged in a circular manner that lights up when flashed.

Some reviewers complained that the music volume is pretty tame. On the contrary, I find the lowest volume level to be TOO loud (I get earache after 10 minutes). I'm still looking for ways to reduce the volume further.

I'll post more observations as the days go by. I think this phone is a hidden beauty because the OS is pretty usable. And no one ever complains of having a beautiful screen to look at. In fact, the LCD is so nice that the photos you capture look better on its small screen than on the computer.

As an interesting aside, all the settings that include a range (volume, brightness, etc.) only have a value between 0 and 7. Kinda weird for non-tech users, but we geeks know better - this way, Motorola only needs a 3 bit register for each setting. Why the frugality though, I'll never know.

The Search Continues

My colleague Kelly saw my previous post and referred me to her brother who is the typical teenager who loves following phone trends. I was never such a teenager, hence I consider myself atypical :P

Anyway, I consulted with him and we both agreed the Motorola SLVR L6 is out of the question. But just when I thought that the K510i is the clear winner, he came up with another alternative that is sounding more and more tantalizing.... the Motorola ROKR E2:
It's about RM50 more expensive than the K510i, but it has SD card slot, proper music player functionality, camera 'flash' (if you can call it that), and great display.

Sigh... it's always tempting to keep moving up the price ladder, but I think I have to stop at RM600.

Here's another question: Have any of you found Bluetooth headsets truly useful?

The Search Begins... Vote for Your Favourite!

Blame it on greed. Blame it on having expendable income. Most of all, blame it on yourself, dear reader. Coz it's your incessant wailing that finally forced me to get a camera phone.

"yada yada yada why so many words wan?"
"your blog looks so dull and boring"
"why so complicated words wan? Can't I just skim through the pics?"

The question is, which phone?

I've been a Nokia user for as long as I've had mobiles, but I realize the Nokia brand comes with a small premium. So I'm willing to take a chance on other makers. Being the cheapskate that I am (that's one thing that didn't change after 6 months), I went to the shop and asked "Which is the cheapest phone with Bluetooth and camera?"

And the guy showed me the Motoslvr L6:
It certainly looks sleek, though its slightly longer and wider than most candybar phones. And at a price of RM368, nothing much to complain. But a few days ago my friend recommended his phone, the Sony Ericsson K510i:
It's slightly over RM500, but it has 1.3mp camera and 18mb more onboard memory. Neither one has a memory slot.

At this moment I'm leaning towards Sony Ericsson, but I'm very fickle so I tend to believe whatever the last commenter says. The RM500 price tag is the only bother I have, but comparatively, it's worth it to pay RM150 more for a better camera and memory (both things that cannot be upgraded).

Please leave a comment, for the make benefit glorious blog of SexyGeek!