Speed Racer - SFX Whore's Die-Die-Must-Watch

When Jerrick called me along to watch Speed Racer with Sham, I went knowing nothing of it except that it used to be some uber popular TV series. Because of our borderline morbid need of movie munchies, we were 5min late for showtime, which I guess is 1-2min movie time. Nothing important missed.

Speed Racer puts you in a futuristic world, where a loudly colored panther-sleek car sits in front of just about any house. Think of it as Telladega Nights set in the future, where race tracks can make even the biggest rollercoaster buffs blanch and the greatest park ride engineers gape. And then think of that combined with Step Up 2, where our hero takes to underground racing, complete with dirty tricks and crazy car mods, to curb the profit making plans of an underhanded businessman. The combination provides for teeth gritting action and nerve wracking stunts.

I heard that many people detest Speed Racer and advise other people not to watch it. The only reason I can think of for that is the same reason why I love it to bits - the movie is quite basically a green screen orgy. I'd say 85-90% of the film was shot in front of a green screen, and I guess people interpret that as convenient film making. Just film, remove, paste fancy background. To me, and you can call me biased because I'm a helpless sucker for crazy ass effects, I think Speed Racer can get away with that, given its sci-fi/fantasy/cartoon-y nature. If you were to shoot like Money No Enough in front of a green screen, that would be a wtf. But Speed Racer probably won't be Speed Racer without CGI on crack. And sometimes it even seems that they deliberately leave it a little untouched, so that its an obvious green screen scene, to remind you of its fantastical nature.

Alot of the movie's excellence was explained when I finally realised during the credits that the Wachowski brothers directed it. It explains the sequencing style of the film (flashback galore), its beautiful pacing, and pin sharp cinematography. I also think that the burning bright colors of Speed Racer are the Wachowski brothers' way of making it up to themselves and their fans because they just couldn't be as brilliant in the darker worlds of The Matrix and V for Vendetta.

You should be warned though not to expect too much out of the plot. The plot in Speed Racer is kind of a secondary thing, just there to lend support to the film, and prevent it from being a total testosterone/geek flick. So go watch it to be dazzled by the kickass races, ingenious stunts, and countless "How the mother did they do that?!" moments, not for a touching story of love romance and sacrifice.

I Live Opposite Fong Seng Now roflcopter lolz

I'm enamored with my new room. Totally enamored.

The last time I shifted house was a good 13 and a half years ago, at the end of 1994, settling down just in time to start my primary school life in Tampines. The only memory I have of shifting was when we arrived at our then shiny-new apartment in Tampines, still huge by HDB standards (executive flat... in other words 5.5 room flat.) There were few things to be shifted over - the most obvious moved item was the ancient fridge. Most of the Tampines apartment's furnishing had been bought, not brought. And since we were kids barely discerning of our surroundings, our parents let us play with our construction toy track set in the extended hall area. You remember those - the one where it was a large track, with stations all round, and this little cart would take on different top bodies at different locations of the track to assume a variety of roles - crane, delivery truck, tractor, etc. We'd just set it up, flick the cart's switch on, set it on the track, and gaze at it for an hour or two.

What my parents might or might not have realized, not really interested to find out, was that staying at such a huge place for over a decade would mean filling such a huge place to the brim with items - things we loved, things we kept just in case, things we couldn't bear to throw, things we couldn't be bothered to throw. And when it was finally time to move, to an inevitably smaller apartment (it's futureproofing, not a housing upgrade), it created many days of nagging and downright bad moods. When crunch time came, I went into such a mode of remorseless disposal that I never thought I was capable of. Except for a couple of exceptionally sentimental items, like the 2004 Victoria School yearbook (grad year), items more than one year old were thrown without much thought. I had to make around 4 trips to the disposal chute for the waste I dug out of my wall cupboards alone. I was sorely wrong when I thought I could fit everything I wanted nicely into a single box. Turned out to be two boxes of belongings, another box and a bag full of clothes. And I arrived at my new condominium, Varsity Park, smack opposite NUS Arts (as well as Fong Seng hohoho) to find the various bags and boxes of items that my father had brought in earlier.

Now my room was really filled.

All in all it took about 4 hours to unpack everything, including masterfully sashimi-slicing through ten layers of shrink wrap to get to my table, desktop computer, and speaker system.

Oh my God speaking of speaker system. Being the kind of idiot needy for music to keep me company (yes I'm lonely fock off.), my 2.1 Creative speaker system was the first appliance to be powered. After bickering hard with my mother and coming to a compromise, I finally got to put my subwoofer on the floor where it belonged. Well, near the floor - a stool was the compromise. My mother did not want any unsweepable/unmoppable areas. Previously, it sat at the edge of my table. Result? I have to turn the bass to 8 (max level 10) for decent bass, only to walk out of the room and hear the subwoofer thumping my house down. Here on the floor, level 6 bass depending on the music can get uncomfortable. NTT would know how much bass I need to make me uncomfortable. :)

If you want to hear the difference it makes, you're welcome into my room, by appointment only, and I'll play Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture for you. The one with cannon blasts at the end. I kid you not, the bass shakes my bed.

Having a clean table to start over with also gave me a valuable opportunity to position things from scratch, and this time, I gave optimal priority to placing my speakers far enough apart so that I can have a decent stereo effect to speak of. The moment I set my computer up, I had a bright idea of rewatching Advent Children, what with the newfound effectiveness of my speaker system. So I duly lowered my Roman blinds, finetuned Windows Media Player's TruBass and WOW effects, cranked the volume up, and hit play.

It was so loud it hurt, but Ave Maria it hurt so good.

In a somewhat impulse buy, except without buyers' remorse (unless you count remorse over losing like 16k), my family spent quite a sum on Simmons beds. The bed with the level of firmness I liked best had only Queen size, and I made my parents buy that by some magic of pouting and a huge show of exasperation. But I'm really really thankful and grateful that they bought it. After months of fleeting doubts, I finally see for myself that losing a bedside table in favor of a larger bed was quite the right thing to do. The bed played quite a significant part in loosening my jaw when I walked into my room the morning I moved in.

The only thing left that kept me from unpacking completely was that my father had yet to drill holes in the walls for my bookshelf and shelf. The shelf for obvious reasons - it's suspended, and the bookshelf because it would otherwise be frightfully wobbly, and might just keel over and krush me like a cockroach when I reach up to grab a book.

Quite a few things haven't arrived - the dining table, my dad and brother's computer/study tables, and the sofa set. Again, I made a big fuss when my mother initially wanted to stick to the fengshui master's recommended orientation of my bed facing the window, so that when I slept I could gaze far away into the sky. I quite nearly went into a complete freak out when I saw that she was perfectly ready to get me a new table instead of shift my old one in. Luckily with my dad's coaxing I got my way. Saved them quite some money too.

As for the TV, jeez, Standard Definition looks atrocious on HDTVs exactly as advertised in electronics stores. And I say this with a Samsung HDTV, which apparently has one of the world's leading upscaling firmware.

I however, opened my big spoilt mouth, and my parents bought a HDMI cable for my XBOX 360 (yes I've finally opened it). After having to gaze at Standard Definition all day while tuning the TV channels (parents didn't want cable), I felt my techie heart sigh with ease when I finally saw blessed 1080p resolution. Halo 3? Sweetness.

Oh right! Now that I've shifted, I finally get to pull my silver carousel musical box out that I bought from Hokkaido. It's lovely, I'm looking at it as I type. It was relatively budget though, so it doesn't have that convenient stop lever at the side, and once you wind it it plays through until it runs out of energy. Would have been good if the LED lights went off after awhile too. If I ever fell asleep while watching it I would probably wake up to a melted carousel.

Enamored with my new room. Enamored with my new home. Enamored enamored enamored.

UPDATE
Hokay so the intended Internet network is up now. Thank God for the thoughtful integration of a telephone/data switchbox. In other words, my router sits in my store room, and is technically able to connect via 100mbps Ethernet to every single computer in the three rooms and my Xbox in the living room through the wall socket, without wires crossing the house and threatening to kill you when you trip while holding a... um glass bottle of vinegar. Surprisingly though, when made to do it, the Mio Box-branded 2wire router can send out a pretty strong wireless signal from a simple option on its configuration page. I'm getting a stable 76% strength with my router in the store room with door closed.

Also, after abit of bickering, I reluctantly agreed to change my table's orientation to face the wall, instead of my bed. Reason being my parents feel that it poses a great hazard when the window is left open, and rain pours in, straight down the back of my desktop monitor. Even I have abit of a hard time reaching in to close the window. They will have a harder time, plus they want to do periodic cleaning too. I was pissed that I can't sit on my bed to watch videos now, and that my sound system is facing a whole 90degrees away from me (audiophile horror), but I guess my room was so small, it didn't turn out to be too bad.

Also, of course, my shelf has since been secured, and I've arranged my display items, mini-one-shelf-favorable-titles-only-library of books, and... miscellaneous stuff over six shelves in total.

Anyway. Enamored.

Singnet Makes It Inexplicably Hard to Access Tech65.org

For about two weeks, starting on the Saturday when we recorded our live show for the 65th episode of 65bits, Tech65.org has been inaccessible through Singnet broadband and wireless@sg. The only way we are aware of so far to get through this problem is to create a proxy at proxy.singnet.com.sg, port 8080.

I think we're pretty sure it isn't a block by Singnet, because 5% of the time it is accessible - a block wouldn't let that happen. It is clearly some sort of connection problem, something that unfortunately after many many attempted solutions, have not lead to improved connections, and our confidence in the services provided by Singtel has completely failed at this juncture. Particularly because of the lack of support from Singtel themselves, something that has infuriated us very much.

This problem has affected our listenership very negatively, especially in recent episodes, even though many of our listeners subscribe to our show through iTunes and our RSS feeds, everything still has to go through our site, and not being able to connect to Tech65 has impeded our ability to continue providing service as many of our editors are on Singtel.

My dear readers and listeners, please blog about this as well on your respective spaces. Let the blogosphere know in your own way about this bizarre problem, and be sure to let us know if you are encountering the same problem with your site. We hope to resolve this soon and get our shows back on the smooth track.

Thank you for your support!

*Thanks to Jerrick for cleaning up my muddly draft*

Rockin' Insanity at Xbox 360's 2nd Birthday Bash @ The Screening Room

Foreword: All the pictures you see are courtesy of MS releasing them. I don't really like to use others' photographs, released or not, and that's why I emptied my wallet buying myself a camera, but there's no point when there isn't a different point of view explored in my limited photographs to show off.


It started off for fellow podcaster Jerrick and I by being a bitch to find. It's a great location with a really exclusive feel to it, but abit too tucked away, and under that day's irritatingly wet conditions, it wasn't exactly fun treasure hunting for it. By the time we got to the door we looked like two tortured wet dogs, but dried off in no time.


Once we got there, we realized just how exclusive an event we managed to get into. There were sooo few people there! And for that we have to thank Geek Goddess Estee. Being a small community in such a small country, quite a few fellow guests were familiar faces. Sheylara, Sabrina, Uzyn, Arzhou and Nic A. Khoo were there. DarkMirage, probably Singapore's most famous anime blogger, was also there, to his own surprise apparently. The story was that someone from GameAxis, he even didn't know who, recommended him, and then there he was.

Sigh, it's nice to be famous.


The night warmed up as we got high on both alcohol and games. Seriously, I can hold my own with digital drum kits and singing, but when it comes to follow-the-combo for Guitar Hero and Rock Band guitars, I suck ass to the ends of the earth. Which according to Hans makes me a real guitar player, because we're used to strings and at least 16 frets, not five bloody buttons.

Yay?


There was the mini games competition, with Bomberman, Guitar Hero 3, and Project Gotham Racing respectively, interspersed by the most awesome game previews ever.

Alone in the Dark

Dead Space

Dragonball Z Burst Limit

Star Wars: Force Unleashed (WHOOO!)

Grand Theft Auto IV

Ninja Gaiden II (just because they sent an insane amount of screenshots)

UEFA Euro '08

I'm still high over the fact that I got to be part of the select crowd that got to see live gameplay previews for Ninja Gaiden II (fuckin bloody, fuckin cool) and Star Wars: Force Unleashed (zomg please just buy it when it comes out it pwnx0rz).


By some error of probability that would have stunned Pythagoras into a heart attack, my team, Ninja, won the games competition, when we finished second in Bomberman I think and third in GH3. Not sure how we did for Gotham. Our prize was an uber sweet exclusive GTA4 t-shirt. Problem was that it was far too small, so they offered to change it, but then the only larger size was crazy huge. See pic lower in the post.


After that was the birthday cake segment, where all of us were given unbearably cute cupcakes with the Xbox logo printed onto a white chocolate cover on top of the cake (see second pic at top of post).


I was surprised how easily we bit into the beautiful logo. But we all learn every day.


The finale was the lucky draw for a brand new Xbox 360, Halo 3 Limited Edition. Alan Chou, who in his words "takes care of Xbox in Asia", drew a number out of a container, and our host for the evening, Oli Pettigrew, referred to the guest list for the corresponding name...

And hesitantly said, "Ren...ho?"


It was then that I did possibly the second most embarrassing thing in my life (the first being my attempt to hold the hand of someone whom I had mistaken as my aunt. I was a little kid ok?? I was short!). Apart of my own volition I let off this crazy Red Indian Woooo0~!! that I have a feeling the girls we're silently impressed with. Good pitch and strength in it, you know? And so much soul.

My l00t. This pic is from my camera, taken by Jerrick.

Alan Chou showing how ridiculously huge XXL is.

Host Oli Pettigrew, Arzhou, and Jerrick

Photowhoring began, and our goodie bags were distributed as well. The highlight, an ultimate sexay black 360 controller. When I setup my 360 over at the new place, that's gonna be my personal controller. The rest of my normal mortal friends can use the normal white ones.

Also included in the bag were GTA4 coasters and stickers, which I might just give out... And a simply lovely Xbox 360 tennis shirt. The problem was that my goodie bag was apparently the S-size set.

I'm gonna get it changed.

And before I forget, hurray and congrats to me for winning, but fucking hell the 360 was a mamafornicating doggiegirl to drag from Tanjong Pagar home to Tampines.

Whether or not I had won the 360 though, I can safely declare that this was the best night of my life in a long long while. Congrats for Xbox for successfully reaching out to the new media community. As for the 360, now that I've effortlessly won one, my attitude to the gaming platform will probably be biased. But in the spirit of ethical journalism, I promise to endeavor to be objective as possible about it.

As for the games I'm gonna review, don't even bet that I'm gonna sugar coat anything. :)

The Classmate PC

So I've been holding the Classmate for about a week and a half now, and I've said it and I'll say it again. I am going to sorely miss this lil' baby when I return it, anytime now.


What I adore about the Classmate PC its it's size. Many girls, and the more petite ones mind you, have stared in awe, as I rattle away on the Classmate's keyboard. Just like any miniaturized gadget nowadays, it is perfectly possible to adapt to its new interfaces, whether physical ones like the keyboard, or software-based interfaces. The external snap-on case also makes it so uber convenient - in two seconds I can jump from fervently rushing my work to snapping the PC close, gathering my things, and walking out of the train without having a thousand peripherals trailing behind me, or worse, falling away one by one.


The other major plus point for a self-professed buffalo like me is it's monstrous durability, and this as a personal choice makes it a very clear winner over the decidedly more sexy EEE PC. I've had such immense fun shocking the watery shit out of my friends by casually tossing the Classmate behind my back. For once, the combination of the crashing sound and the strangled cries as they feel unneeded pain for the Classmate is just hilarious music to my ears.



My dad was so impressed by its features that he's asking me to get one. I do hope to get it. Then it would save me from having to drag my big boulder of a Macbook Pro around by default.

Love ya baby. See ya soon...

The Intel-powered Classmate PC has just released its second generation. Read all about it at the official website.

Startup@Singapore Web 2.0 Talk - Failure to Winner

So I was at S@S's last installment of its Emerging Industries series of talks, talking about Web 2.0, with NTT. I have to admit that I was largely attracted to this talk because Kevin Lim was speaking (not that I'm attracted to him la shit but I always love to hear what he has to say). And the other two speakers, Vanessa Tan (Van Tan) and Stuart Tan, were also familiar names to me, so I thought it would be pretty fun.


It was quite a large audience. Interestingly a whole group of students who didn't seem any older than JC took up two centre rows of seats.

S@S, however, did a dismal job of webcasting Kevin over. They were doing it through Skype, which I would concede as the optimal consumer solution, but projected onto the wall, Haysoos Christ Kevin looked worse than a eboy picture. Nevertheless I was impressed with his casting setup - him with two PiPs - one with a side view of him and another with his theorycast logo. And that's not all - he had a scrolling ticker tape at the bottom which he could dynamically change on the fly. You'll see how he used it later on in this post.

But back to the S@S people's setup. How motheringly bad can your set up be? There are plenty of technically adept people to consult even if you don't know how to create smooth webcasting. Kevin had the view of only one cam, the laptop's webcam, and it was facing not the audience but the speakers on stage. Could have done a PiP like he did. They were using the laptop's built-in mic for Kevin's audio. Could have routed the audio out of the mixer in to the laptop. But noo! Built-in mic. For tech's sake you people you aren't small fry. Get yourself some bloody help la. Freaking give a student a $50 angbao to help you with the setup.


Having said that, I still think S@S should be duly credited for even trying such new and somewhat unpredictable technology. Other companies or organizations would have given up a first-choice speaker because he's halfway round the world; S@S went ahead and failed spectacularly at it, but I do hope they learn from it, because when pulled off, its just amazing and maybe, just maybe, awe-inspiring.

And then there was the moderator, who introduced himself as a first-year communications student, and who looked as though he was frantically called at 5 in the morning because the original moderator came down with a 41-degree fever. Then again, there's a chance that that happened.

First-year? Panel moderator? Seriously? Is it that hard to find a final-year? Or a toastmaster even???

Urghlbarneygoo.

He failed to intercept when a member of the audience booed VanTan (not that we were entirely pissed at the booer, who turned out to be Bill Claxton aka itr8, but still he wasn't doing his job), he seemed to be always caught unaware when the panelists finished answering, and was just generally not quite up to it. But, I like to see good in people, and at the very least, he was well-spoken and articulated.


Because of the earlier described setup, Kevin had a horrible time hearing questions - he mostly heard painfully loud white noise and static, as evidenced by the short recording he posted after the conference. Only the moderator walked down to the laptop to repeat the questions, and it was quite amusing when it was Q&A and he went. "If anyone has questions for Kevin, please come down to the laptop."

Enter NTT, itr8, micamonkey, and me! While the other three started Twittering Kevin the proceedings of the panel (some with opinions, some plain reports... micamonkey relied solely on her Nokia 3100 to Twitter. Talk about fastest fingers first.), I with my usual rational mind decided to turn myself into a speech-to-text machine, transcripting what was said to Kevin via Windows Live Messenger. For awhile, I struggled to type coherent sentences on the 9" Classmate PC, but then thankfully NTT swapped his Macbook, so I had the relative luxury of a 15+" keyboard to type on. It felt surreal and somewhat accomplishing, 1) pushing a part of myself to the limit (make what you will of it, but I just don't type that fast), and 2) seeing the concepts Kevin taught me come to life before my geeky bespectacled eyes, notably crowdsourcing and the gift economy.


I think I had to Twitter something, and koped the Classmate back for awhile. NTT found this so amusing that he took my camera to snap this priceless picture. I guess multi-tasking and four desktop spaces just isn't enough for my social whoring needs.

Meanwhile, Kevin was being a riot on screen with his ticker tape. Just look at his crazy statements!


He said later on Twitter that he felt he had to stop all his crazy tickertape statements because he felt he was ruining the whole discussion with his mean one-liners. Well I agreed with half of it. Which half? Go figure. :)

Kevin's since told the Tech65 team that his secret is this downright awesome Mac application called CamTwist. For free, this gem allows you to create PiPs, display pictures, logos, watermarks, RSS feeds ticker tape, and plenty of other plain cool effects. So Mackies, be sure to check it out, and Windowers, if you beg and plead enough I guess they'll make a Win version.

I can't emphasize enough how unprofessional I felt S@S was, but I'm not blacklisting them just yet, and hey, you shouldn't too. I think it's only fair to give them more chances, and we all learn some time or the other. Just for this event however, Kevin's madness and our indirect participation in the panel really made the event do a sharp about turn, from a doomed failure, to a priceless winner.

Just for us, at least.

How far should working-world simulations go in academic situations?

Yesterday marked a sour end to an otherwise enjoyable and engaging lecture. As usual, the lord of all this chaos was our COM443 lecturer, Principles and Techniques in Advertising. We had just received an individual and a group assignment, and were already conducting the typically Singaporean preliminary discussions as to how to approach it. That was when Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped.

Simultaneously.

"Due to the recent financial crisis affecting the United States," he started in an amusing old-man voice, "the BeBoP Corporation (that's what he calls it) is facing numerous problems and therefore are retrenching."

Cue: collective gasp and buzz.

"Please choose a member of your team to be fired," he continued in his usual voice, "the fired members will then come together to form a new ad agency (what he calls our groups)."


Everyone was staring at each other speechless. There was initial talk at insisting that all was well within the company and no retrenchment was necessary, but we knew well by now that he would never let that pass. Comical reenactments of the Survivor voting scene became reality for some groups. Joking suggestions of doing open numbers came to pass for other groups. (For those who don't know, open numbers is a system of selection by chance where at the intonation of ohhh-pen numm-bers! group members display a number with their fingers. The sum total is calculated, and the calculator starts counting in a circle until he reaches that number. Depending on the situation, the identified person is either first in a game, or the one who gets booted.) For a couple of groups like mine, we went by random selection.

No yeah, I took this picture after class was concluded.

Personally I feel that we picked the best method of handling such an unfavorable situation. However clear it is that we have been pushed into a corner into doing this, there is that key element of choice in voting. You made a choice to boot someone, and that someone was me. If the outed person knows he or she hasn't been contributing to the group, this only serves to lower that person's morale and confidence about his or her true capabilities. If he or she is oblivious to group members' sentiments of him/her not doing his due share of work, or if he/she was just the best candidate to pick out of all the others, he/she will start questioning himself/herself about where he/she had gone wrong. Was I an asshole? Didn't I do enough work? Should I have helped out more in X or Y?

Obviously there's still disappointment and upset in a random choice, but the unlucky person is at least comforted by the fact that there was no element of selection in this result. There can be little space for any sort of blame, unless everyone fold quarters you crush into a circle la. Then you asking for it right you try and be different?

My question today is: how far can a lecturer reasonably swing us through the mud of real life? How far down can he dip is in it without drowning us?

One has every right to argue that, wake up your ideas you young brat, that's what happens in the real world, don't argue against what you know nothing of. Now that's true. But flip the coin and look at this academically. For those booted out, their academic stability, at least in their minds, are churning 6 times over. They have to face the uncertainty of unfamiliarity all over again, and in such cases where there are known cock members (and where the member may indeed be one), it is in direct interference with their grades. There goes their A. Fuck, there goes their B! Is that morally right for a lecturer to do? Jeopardize students' grades with a possibly over-the-top simulation of the corporate world?

If one wishes to expose undergrad students to real world scenarios - dressing up for interviews, suiting up for presentations, working in randomly selected groups - I respect that. Better than us finding the world not as sparkly white as the walls of our lecture theatre. But I am of the opinion that lecturers should not carry the game so far as to affect the excellence of our grades.

What do you think?

LG KS20 Bloggers and Forumers Launch

So since I've talked about it over at 65bits, I thought I'd provide a more personal point of view of the event here. As Rinaz rightly pointed out, I was very glad to have not one, two, but a whole table of pingsters with me (as well as more in our immediate surroundings). It would have been cold and lonely to attend the event without anyone familiar. For that I suppose we'll have to thank fellow pingster Princessa Sabrina for inviting. Her friend was prudent to get her to help - she has great links through ping.sg and even out of it.

This was the main table I sat with.

The people who brightened my evening... Left to Right: DK, Sheylara, Claudia, Rinaz.

Other pingsters who attended the event (yeah everyone I knew there were pingsters you got a problem?) were Geekonomics's Nicholas Aaron Khoo, Iz from I.Z. Reloaded, 9eek 9oddess Estee, nadnut and jayden. Those that I recognized anyway. I think there were a couple others.


I love the food provided at Corduroy Cafe, where the event was held. The ambience there is welcoming and cosy, and the food is mostly delicious. It's quite obvious that LG didn't hold back on their costs.




The event, I would say, was a great success. Again, Fleishman and LG have Sabrina to thank, because we bloggers really made each other's night better. Proof?

DK invents Endorsement 2.0

The IXUSes

The LUMIXes (FX1 and FX12 how cool is that? Front still looks the same after all these years)
Courtesy Rinaz

Goofing off with camera flash competition (and I cheated :P)
Courtesy Rinaz

Trying to work my way around the phone (and Windows Mobile 6)
Courtesy Nicholas

My first impressions of the product, however, were terrible. Perhaps it was due to the inherently messy interface of Windows Mobile 6. But I don't want to pass final judgment on a product after a nett playtime of 5 minutes. I'm gonna want to use it for as long as possible before coming up with a detailed review.


But as far as first impressions go, I interviewed Nicholas, DK and Rinaz. I'll probably post that over at Channel65, so watch out for that. And Rinaz interviewed me in return. It was actually quite embarrassing for my ego as a tech podcaster and reviewer, because that was like the worst interview I ever did in my life.



Overall, I quite enjoyed myself. Companies should take a leaf from LG's book when it comes to PR events. As for products, LG may have well have to take a leaf from other books.

"I mean, what do you think when you think of LG?"
Simultaneously: "Washing machines"
"EXACTLY!"

Other bloggers who wrote about the event... Check em' out!
Sabrina
DK
Sheylara
Claudia
Nicholas
IZ

Furniture Revamp at Geek Terminal!

So, before the LG bloggers' launch event, I had alot of time to kill, and alot of energy to recoup, so I went to Geek Terminal to chill my afternoon away. It's a good thing I didn't fall asleep in the comfy couch/lounge thingy, although I took some liberties in stretching myself out. I cleared like 6 7 videos. It's actually more exhausting than relaxing.

It must have been in between videos when I was resting my senses when I noticed Danny beckoning Chris over. I saw Danny sit triumphantly into what looked like quite the ordinary black chair, as if he'd just been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Unable to resist my curiousity I walked over and took a good luck at the new chair. My opinion didn't change from when I was a distance away - it looked plain. The cushion looked thin. When I sat in it however, at the kind invitation of the two bosses, it felt surprisingly comfortable, and supportive. And you know for someone of my size, it feels particularly gratifying to know that not only the chair but the cushion can support your weight well. Here's what it looked like.

The armrest

Backrest

Cushion

The cushion from the side

Geek Terminal is apparently doing a huge ass revamp. In fact I wanted to blog about the garage sale that happened yesterday and today, but... well time just passed too fast. There were loads of old product stocks going for sale, and even the old "classic" GT furniture. Hope they stretch it beyond this week. Meanwhile, the next time you go to GT, don't be surprised to see a whole new look!

By the way, before I left, Chris dumped a dubious looking half finished espresso on my table.



"Try it. Nice!"

Oh my God the first sip nearly physically knocked me over.

Turns out Chris gave me a cup of moscato espresso. Moscato is the semi-sweet Italian wine, although the taste makes it feel like semi-sweet Italian hardass liquor.

Not bad. Watch out for it. Get drunk and high. Oh yeah~

The Net is Torn

Okay okay okay. Okay.

Okay.

I HAVE alot of material to post up (no excluding the ones that I said I would follow up with but never did, sorry about those).

Tonight, the murderfishing Internet connection is faulty, and no video can be streamed, no video can be uploaded, no PHOTOS can be uploaded.

You wait. I'll show you. Got a load to shove down your throat.

Don't be sick la please.