The Crying Rituals

For the past few Sunday evenings, Mayenne would be out with us for dinner. She would be a good baby with little fuss.

For the past 2 Sunday evenings, once we got back home, she would start wailing and crying for a good 30 minutes, sometimes longer.

I have a few explanations:

1. She realises that her outing is over and so she cries for more.
2. She is colicky - only after an outing.
3. She gets traumatised during her outing (too much stimulants?) and only lets out her anger/anxiety/sadness when she returns to a familiar environment, a.k.a. home.

We'll have to monitor the situation in order to pinpoint the real cause.

Meanwhile, she has already managed to flip to her tummy on her own, and she can lift up her head very well on her tummy. It's so heartening to see baby grow and learn new things, but it also brings sadness, because, with each passing day, as she learns new things and grows into a better person, she leaves behind moments that we can only relive in our memories.

Down on Gadget Luck

This week my family has experienced some of the worst gadget experiences.

Tuesday, I went to Sim Lim Square to redeem a free bluetooth headset (Lanso A6) when I signed up with OCBC EasiCredit. After bringing back to office and charging for more than 12 hours, it refused to work. The charging indicator is on, but once I unplugged it, there is no power. I'm still charging it as I type this post: about 40 hours already? I reckon there is no point bringing back for an exchange because the product is so bad, even an exchange might not guarantee that it will last for a month. And the transportation costs and time spent is better used on other areas. Well done, OCBC. Hope you try harder.
Then my wife bought a new mini-compo, the Philips MCM108D, because the existing one in our bedroom (also a Philips, 6 years old) is getting quirky. The old hi-fi would randomly go dead, or that it would take several minutes to 'warm up' before a sound could be heard.

Ironically, the new hi-fi set is worse than the old one. Well, it looks great and stylish, but the functions are crap.

Firstly, there are no radio presets. None. You have to tune it digitally using the rolling knob, just like the old days. OK we can live with that, at least the knob allows us to tune faster than the 2-button tuner.

Then, according to the manual, the wake-up timer volume is preset at "12" and will gradually go louder to "18". What the? The previous hi-fi allows you to set any volume. Our workaround is to set the wake-up timer to play the CD with some soothing music (like Piano Spa). Think we outsmarted the machine? This morning, when the CD started spinning from the wake-up timer, my wife switched off the player before the track played. When she returned from the bathroom and switched to the radio, the volume stood at "18". She frantically lowered the volume before her nerves got damaged further. Perhaps we need to get a muffler for the speakers.

It comes with docking stations for iPod and GoGear (Philip) but we have none of these to complement. Still, my wife chose for the looks. And it's cheap. But I think she now regretted buying this white elephant. Well done, Philips. Please don't try so hard to reinvent the wheel.

I Like Routine

I like routine, not because I'm a boring person (actually, I am). With routine, I can plan my other ad-hoc activities around these fixed activities.

If I live by the day, then how am I supposed to plan activities for tomorrow, or next week, or next month?

Routine allows you to find a match with your peers over a period of time. If my friends have routine, then it's easier to plan ahead to meet. For friends with no routine in their lives, it is impossible to meet them. They are either busy with activities that come their way at the last minute, or they would say they are busy with activities that are expected to come their way.

Then again, to them, being busy is a routine for them. Perhaps, when they become idle, they would feel uneasy and unplanned.

The Sony Ericsson P1i

It's more well-designed than I had thought.

When I initially saw the product announcement, I wasn't very impressed with the look, and the keyboard which follows the M600i instead of the previous P-series. The M600i is totally plastic all around the casing.

Not P1i. It has brushed-aluminum around the frame, and a rubber backing much like T68. The speaker is hidden stylishly on top of the camera lens behind a metal bar. The sides employ glossy black plastic that is prone to fingerprints. Buttons like power and camera are in silver while the rest are blended in the same black tone. Its LED indicator is placed below the phone near to the port connector, another unique feature that my wife likes. The keyboard is easier to press than the M600i.

While taking some shots of the M600i which I am trying to sell on the Internet, I can't resist taking some snaps on the P1i.

Angie's Birthday Gift Adventure

I have long thought of what to get for Angie's birthday - the Sony Ericsson P1i. I guess she also expected me to get it for her. Last year, I got her the M600i, which currently sells for more than half the price brand new.

I didn't want to purchase too early or else the warranty would have kicked in. But this week was a crazy week for me. 19th, we had to go home early to get a birthday cake for Angie's mum. 20th, we're together whole day to collect car. 21st, there is a Mid-Autumn Festival party at my office and I was asked to perform some songs.

Fortunately, Angie is also away in the evening. Her company had D&D, and her mum decided to get her own dinner instead of me buying back. So now I can make a detour after work to buy the present. And it's not just any mobile shop. I went specially to Mobilesquare at Far East Plaza where they sold the cheapest P1i in the market.

The multi-storey car park at Far East Plaza isn't very car-friendly. The ramps are quite tight and I had a trying time navigating, party because I was driving my 1-day-old car.

After I got home, I pasted the screen protector and charged the phone. When she called me to pick her, I placed the phone in the box on the bed. After she got home, it took her a long while before she got into the bedroom. I was spying for her reaction outside the room, and when she finally saw the box and picked it up, I went into the room and wished her "Happy Birthday!"

The P1i is really good looking, much better than the M600i that she is using. There are brushed-metal finishing with rubber surfacing on the back of the phone, reminding me of the T68. The buttons are also easier to press than the M600i. On the whole, though, I still prefer my P990i way of key entry.

I know that photos will make blogs more interesting, but I have no strong intentions to 'commercialise' my blog. If I got photos and if I have time, I will post. Photos or lack of, well-wishers will read my posts thoroughly, and that's my target audience. And if no one reads, this will just serve as an event log.

Car update: the air-con doesn't seem to be cold enough, compared to my dad's 4-year-old car. I'm definitely going back to the service centre within the next month. And the solar film also didn't really perform as expected. Maybe I am expecting too much in our humid sunny island.

Magnum

My parents have always owned a car since I was very little, so family outings are always a breeze. But for all my other social and academic-related activities, I take public transport. So in a way, I am very familiar with car use, minus the hassle of maintaining one. I never appreciated cars - not in a 'taken-for-granted' kind of way, but rather, I don't care less about designs, engine power, body work, tyres, rims, fuel efficiency, etc. Cars are just transportation tools. When I hop on a friend's car, I don't bother about the car make, model, or even the car colour.

But all this car-purchasing process has opened up another experience and gain new knowledge in my life.

Today, I am officially a car-slave.

We picked up the car at the Chevrolet Alpine Motors service centre at Sin Ming. It didn't take long for me to notice a crack on the signal plastic cover on the left side mirror, for which they promised me a replacement during my next servicing appointment. Dex the sales exec had kindly sent the car for System 6 paint protection at Tuff Clad prior to our collection, so that saved us 3 hours.

Although the car is not supposed to come with fog lamps, it was installed, and Dex had no idea why. Ironic, because for the price you pay, the dealers often have no idea of the complete configuration details until the car reaches the owner. Dex also forewarned me that the brand of the sound system depends on batches. For ours, it's not Blaupunkt.

Our first destination after driving out the car is to fix the solar film at Thermal Guard at MacPherson Road. When we returned an hour later after lunch, we were surprised that the car was ready.

Next stop: Autobacs off Upper Bukit Timah Road, to grab some accessories like cleaning cloth, leather and dashboard cleaning liquid, etc. I was contemplating changing the car horn - the Optra horn sounds like a toy car - but reckon we seldom horn anyway.

Final stop: AMK Hub to do grocery shopping.

I was quite happy with the performance of the car. In fact, the feel is similar to my dad's Opel Astra-G, making me feeling very at ease.

I do notice one issue: during gradual acceleration after the gearbox switches to 2nd gear when the RPM is still low, there is a minor engine vibration which goes away only after further acceleration. If this persists, I'll have to get the service centre to check.

And so the responsibility begins, for now I have to care for this $56000 asset, the single most expensive movable item I have ever owned.

What The F ?

Facebook, that is!

There has been reports on the immense popularity of Facebook in America, but it never occurred to me how different it can be to Friendster or other online community sites, until I finally tried it yesterday, when someone finally invited me to Facebook. It's the way the community is designed with all the third-party widgets and applications that provides you with never-ending possibilities of exploring the virtual community. Let me share with you how it could go on and on.

First, you create your own profile, afterwhich you can retrieve your online email's contacts and let Facebook search for your contacts who also have Facebook. Once you choose to add them, they will be notified to add you back. As they add you, they can create a comment on how you are related. You can then accept the relation or you can change the relation. For instance, a friend can comment that "you worked together", or you are both members of a club.

When they have accepted your invitation, they will most likely send you some invites to add some applications, like virtual pets, virtual gardens, virtual gifts, virtual drinks, online games, etc. And when you add them, you will be led to the application to customise or add other friends in your list. And it goes on.

For every action you do, Facebook captures it as a 'news feed', much like a history of actions. But the most ingenious thing that Facebook does is to update you, on your Facebook homepage, what your friends have been up to. They could either have updated their status (like "I'm at work"), or added some new friends, or did something to their friends (like commenting on their page), or added new photos. This update makes you learn new things about your friends and leads you to explore their profile. And in their profile, you see more information on the activities surrounding your friends. For instance, if your friend has a virtual pet, someone could "pet" or "feed" the pet and you can see the status.

As your friends list grows, you will get lots and lots of updates, and as you explore your friends' profiles, it might lead you to other friends, and uncover long lost associates or classmates.

My Facebook account is barely 2 days old. Mind you, I have not even explored other default features like photos, groups, marketplace. I am so convinced that it is a worthy and fun site that I got my wife to join too.

I liked the fact that Facebook involves you with your friends' activities and updates, unlike other online community where you have practically nothing to do after you created an account and added your contacts. Facebook pushes information to you regarding your friends - people whose lives you take great interest in knowing - people who means something to you.

Funny, Sia!

An extremely funny clip that I saw on Jack Neo's blog. It was passed to him by a Malaysian director who is also into comedy productions. Some of the clip excerpts need some level of "de-intellect" to understand, so for those who don't get it, perhaps your IQ is too high.



Another video clip, hosted by Debbie Wong and Howard Lo, who gives a satirical news commentary. This is episode 1, so expect more to come.

New Responsibility

Yesterday, we celebrated Angie mum's birthday at Marina Square. And Mayenne had her very first shopping outing after that. We walked for nearly 4 hours as we went to look for baby stuffs (what else). Mayenne was doing rather well, but even the best baby has limitations.


I think Mummy would have more thoughts about the shopping episode, so hop over to her blog and read how she felt. And I am quite proud to know that Angie is getting very creative in her blog entries. I really like the post about Mayenne's "tongue exercise". Mind you, she took all the photos too.

This week, I will have another new member in my family - my Chevrolet Optra Magnum car. Like a baby, the car carries a heavy responsibility that is putting me in a constant grueling process of getting the best deal in everything.

- firstly, getting the right car with best value and least known problems (thankfully over)
- deciding on the right colour (again we settled on that already)
- deciding on the right rims and tyres (we just made our final decision)
- deciding on the best paint protection system (still thinking)
- deciding on the best servicing package (haven't thought about it yet)
- deciding on the best petrol (someone recommended Shell)
- deciding on the best product for car care (need I?)
- deciding on the cheapest carparks to park when going to city (ongoing exercise)
- deciding on what to do when my car gets worn and torn during usage (hopefully not often!)
- finally, driving with car in the treacherous traffic

I probably missed out lots of things that I need to note in owning a car, but those will come as time goes by.

“No other man-made device since the shields and lances of the ancient knights fulfills a man's ego like an automobile” -- William Rootes

Sadly, societal pressure has forced me to look for an automobile that fills the ego. A car that reflects my personality, my status. A family man, not a roadster.

I'm already having a hard time making myself look good when I go out. Now I have to make my car look presentable too.

Good thing Mayenne's wardrobe is Mummy's responsibility.

I Believe... in I Believe

In 2004, my music manager got me to produce an album by re-arranging a list of Mandarin pop songs in New Age style. I did 16 tracks and submitted to the record label. It seems that the album was ready to be released, but months went by and still no news. The label continued giving reasons for delay, but I figured that the album would never materialise.

I personally loved the transformation I did for the Mandarin songs. I tried to apply the same style to some of the tracks in my upcoming piano album featuring English soft-rock songs (I do hope this time the album will come to fruition - I was told it will be released this month).

I have this belief, that if a track is not being used by any record labels after a period of time (for this case, more than 36 months), it probably means it is not worthy to be commercially exploited. So I might as well share the work publicly.

So here's one of the tracks, I Believe, originally a Japanese song that has been re-sung in Mandarin (by Van Fan Yi Chen), in Korean, in numerous instrumental pop versions. Here is my version in New Age.

I actually performed this song in public in late 2004, as part of a publicity for this (stillborn) album. So perhaps many you might find it familiar.

To listen, look for the track in the IMEEM music playlist on the top right of this blog.

If you like what you hear and want to use this track for commercial purposes, please contact me.

A Testing Contest

I just joined ONE.MOTORING, a one-stop portal for motorists. They had a contest open to members who post at least once on the forum. The last day of the contest was yesterday, so I made one forum entry just for the sake of hoping to win the contest.

At 6pm, I received an email, informing me that I have indeed won the contest - a pair of tickets to a movie preview. I had to collect the tickets from the organiser's office. The address? International Business Park, located at Jurong East, a good distance from the nearest MRT station.

I wonder how many people would actually drive there to collect a prize worth $19. And I bet that they are only open during office hours, which means either you drive there during lunch (and I won't be surprised if they are closed during lunch) or you are a road warrior who can make detours during office hours in between destinations.

I won't blame them for the arrangement. I mean, the company can't help that they are located at some corner of the island. But they could offer the following:

a. post the tickets to the winner's address
b. arrange to collect at the box office

Immediately after receiving the email, I asked them for their opening hours via email. Till now I have not received any reply. Actually, regardless of the response, I won't be bothered to collect the tickets. It just gives me another thing to mock at them.

Besides, the preview screening is on next Tuesday, so it's either I collect today (no chance) or Monday whole day or Tuesday morning. I seriously wonder whether organisers do this kind of arrangement on purpose. The advantage for them is that if winners find it too troublesome to collect the prizes, the company can enjoy it themselves. After all, they have achieved the objective or getting more responses to whatever they are trying to promote. But I'm sure they don't do that on purpose. Maybe their mindset is: since we give them for free, I'm sure they would take the trouble to come to our office to collect it.

Sometimes I wonder whether I am asking too much (I mean, I WON the contest, what more can I ask? Go collect the prize!).

There was this other online community I joined months back, and they too offered freebies to the first x hundred sign-ups. The catch: you have to go to some inaccessible industrial park to collect the gifts. Forumers actually went online to ask what the freebies were to determine whether it was worth the trouble to collect it. Needless to say, not many people actually do.

So, say if I were to re-write this post all over again, it would probably go like this:

Yeah! I won a contest organised by ONE.MOTORING. It's a movie preview next Tuesday. I'm so lucky!

But... the place to collect the price is so out of place, I don't think I can spare the time to travel there and collect it. I'm so unlucky!

Long Live Canon Printers

My very first inkjet printer I bought was an Epson about 10 years ago. The reason for choosing that brand was its fame for photo-quality printouts. However, that printer did not last over 2 years because the print head clogged beyond repair.

For my replacement printer, I still chose Epson, because the quality is indeed the best among the competition. But again the print head didn't survive the toxic ink and started clogging yet again. It didn't help when the ink cartridges were costly and that each cartridge contains 3 independent colour chambers, which means if one colour finishes, I have to replace the entire cartridge.


Eventually, I decided to choose practicality over quality. I decided to switch to Canon, and found this particular model, the S400, very practical, because:
a. each cartridge is independently replaceable
b. the print head module is removable and you can use other types of print heads like a 6-colour module or a image scanner module. And the fact that it's removable means that in the event the head is clogged, I can buy a new print head module instead of throwing the entire printer.

Now, after over 8 years (I think!), the printer still works, amazingly. First, the print head did not clog. Second, the ink did not harden (maybe because my printer is kept in a cool humid place). I probably switch on the printer once every 3 months to do a few pages of casual printing.

The ultimate incident is this: when the ink ran out last week, I was surprised that I can even find the replacement cartridges at my neighbourhood bookstore! It can't get any better than this! No other electronic equipment I know of that I own has their replacement part or accessory still available in retail stores after so many years.

I can't say whether the new Canon printers have such long lifespan, but one thing is for sure: you are never wrong in choosing original brand ink cartridges. I am a living proof that using original cartridges can extend your printer's lifespan beyond your wildest dream.

Many people might think that it's not a big deal since printers are so cheap. I don't mind getting new and latest technology printers if I am a fervent print-out user. But I only print stuffs once in a blue moon. It'll be an absolute waste to buy a new printer to print less than 50 pages only to find that the machine no longer works because of a clogged print head. I'm just thankful to own a hardy printer that served its purpose in times of occasional use.