Marching on to Autumn

Autumn is here so bye bye to the Summer heat wave!

Amen to that brother!

I don't think I can handle another day walking around with armpit sweat patches!


Yes.  Grossness.

*****

Autumn means the start of the football season, which also means the time for my wedding is fast approaching!

I'm using the football season as my ruler because we're getting married same day as the football grand final.  I'm just hoping none of the west ozzy teams make it to the finals otherwise we're going to have some very unhappy guests!

Thankfully work for the wedding has been progressing along nicely.  I mean, we're doing as much as we can now but we know there'll be things that we'll have to leave until the end.  We're going to the Dusk Bridal Expo this Saturday followed by grand wedding in Hyatt.  I hope you're not too tired of wedding posts.

*****

Last Sunday, my family visited Anh's family to discuss our engagement tea ceremony.

Nothing like pork chop and broken rice to get the folks together.

Our parents talked about the tea ceremony, but also about random things like fishing, food and tradition.

I must say, I'm very glad both my parents and Anh's parents get along so well.  Family feuds are always unpleasant, so a good start in that department is a good sign.  Since both parents respect each other's traditions and customs I'm sure the engagement will run smoothly.

Plus us young ones will make sure its fun.  :)

****

Last Sunday Anh and I also invested on a new SLR camera!

*insert "wooooo" sounds*

It's very exciting!  It came with two lenses and it goes click click click when you press down on the button -  just like in the movies!!

And we got a sling bag with a compartment to put your wallet!

And its got lots of dials and numbers and stuff.

Its very heavy though.

Quite big too!

*ahem*

As you can see we're complete noobs when it comes to photography.

I was clicking away on Monday and the shots looked good in the viewfiender, but all the photos came out black!  :(

But thanks to YouTube photography tutorials, I'm picking up on photography lingo and techniques very, very quickly. Yey!

I'm actually off the training wheels (Auto Mode) and am adjusting my own shutter speeds and ISO settings!

*inser "wooooo" sounds*

Hopefully in the not-so-distant future, we can take colourful shots of random things which we can enlarge, frame and hang all over the house to make it bright and happy.

Wasabi Printer

Very excited today :P

Got my new Dell Wasabi Printer!

No wires - just bluetooth!

If you haven't heard of it before, the Wasabi printer is Dell's version of the Polaroid Pogo. These printers are Bluetooth printers that let you instantly print your mobile phone pics!

This printer replaces my old Polaroid camera which I loved.... but had to get rid of because Polaroid didn't make the film for them anymore. Probably because Polaroid film were hell expensive! Worked out to be over $2 a shot!

The Wasabi print outs are only 2x3" in size and the colours a tad greenish, but are quite good. They not super fantastic, but so was the Polaroid :) And the film is almost ten times cheaper at 96 sheets for $20.

Plus you can peal off the back and make it a sticker!! Instant Purikura!!

Now these printers used to be US$200+ each. But for some freaky reason (maybe coz the quality is only so-so hehehe) they now selling of about $30! Bargain!! :P

Looking forward to lugging this thing around and printing fun random stuff!

Hehehehe.

~~shake it

~~shake it

~~shake it like a polaroid picture! Heeeeey yaa~~~~!

**** Edit - Another case of stupid me not reading the manual!! The Zink photo paper comes with a calibrating sheet - which I threw away when I did my first prints. I thought it was just backing material - who knew the bardcodes were important :P The printer infact reads it to calibrate the printer. The prints are so much better now - not as greenish. Very happy with it :P

The Gamer

3Willings

1) Beyonce - If I Were A Boy

2) Tomato and Parmesan Dip

3) F.E.A.R.

Its not the fastest beast on the planet, but I'm very happy with my new computer.

 My girlfriend is not impressed with my inches

The big reason why I'm happy is because I built it myself.  

The building process was stressful but it was very educational and quite rewarding.

Thank you to Tess for all your help.

 

I'm finally running games at decent resolutions and graphics details.

old laptop resolution (click)

New PC resolution (click)

Phully S3k.

 

************************

 

Back in high school, I did a lot of tinkering with computers.  

I played with RAM, 3DFx card, sound card. And toyed a fair bit with the IRQ on the 14.4kbps modem. 

 

And I spent quite a bit of time playing games.

 

Actually that would be a mean understatement. 

 

I spent pretty much most of my waking hours playing on the computer. 

If not on the computer, I'm thinking, dancing, eating and singing about computers.

 

The only thing that stopped me from infusing with the the computer chair was work twice or three times a week.  

Of course work pay I used to fund upgrades for the Cyrix 686 or buying games.

 

I loved my computer.  

It gave me the escape I needed from the craziness that was high school.

 

But Moore's law would have it that my computer wouldn't run the newer games.  8Megs of video RAM and 133MHz of pseudo-intel CPU power would not cut it.  

And very quickly, games started to look ugly and ran like slideshow on my beloved machine. 

Enter the Playstation.  The OTHER woman in my life.  Hehehe.   And PC was quickly forgotten.

********

 

A few weeks ago, when I slotted in the new PCI-e graphics card to the mobo, I got a rush I haven't felt in years.

Its like a jolt of energy traversing down my fingers into my spine.  A mix of anxiety and excitement of tinkering with computers came rushing back. 

 

Suddenly I want to play games again.  And I want to play them all now!

I want to see the worlds I've missed because of all those years I've missed. 

 

Its like discovering colour after living in grey for a long time.

 

But I'm also worried.  Worried that I'll get hooked again.

**************

Last sunday my girlfriend was subliminally trying to tell me she wanted to go to the beach.  

Yeah, I know, subliminal is how she communicates.

 

I knew she wanted to do something, so I ended my Guildwar quest and was quickly adjusting my skill attribute points for my next time playing.

 

'Quickly' turned out to be an hour.

 

I was so consumed by what spells and skills to use that what I perceived to have been 'quick', was an hour in real-people time.

 

Luckily, my charms, manly strength and quick thinking won my girlfriend back quickly.  But that was a close call.

 

This was a minor thing.  The real issue here is girls and their silly subliminal messaging.

But it's still noteworthy, and scary, how time slips away from me when I'm on the computer.

 

And not just me, there's group of girlfriends out there who have lost their boyfriends to computer gaming and MMORPGs.  

The gamer widows as they are called.

 

So I am a bit worried.  But hopefully I won't get addicted.  

Now what game do I play next.  

I heard World of Warcraft is good.

Eargasm

Yay!! My brother has dropped off my birthday present and I couldn't be happier (don't tell my girlfriend).

I LURRVE my new Bose On-Ear Headphones!!!!

Please excuse this blatant plug on Bose products but if you're a try-hard audiophile like me - then you'd definitely want a pair of these babies.

I've been listening to music with the bass up for three minutes and now I need to do #2.
Now thats what you call stomach turning bass!!

For me, a good sound source is one that lets you identify each musical instrument when you're listening to a song. And I'm not kidding you - the sound quality on this thing is DA BOMB!!!!

There's three types of Bose earphones - an in-ear model (the pluggy things you shove in ear), on-ear and an outer ear one. I think the on-ear is the best cause its really comfortable plus its not directly shoving sound into your ear. The outer ear is a bit biggish for my liking.

In my last overseas trip I bought a Sony Noise canceling Earphones (MDR-NC22). Does a great job in removing noise, but the sound quality was only so-so.

If I would grade it out of 100 - 10 being ultimate-cream-your pants - eargasm, 0 being no sound at all, ill give the Sony a 55.

Ipod earphones get a 43.

The bose gets an 85.

If you enjoy listening to music, you should get these.

Once you hear music through this thing, you'd want to listen to your music collection again.
Because you haven't heard it until you've heard it through these!