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September 17, 2004

comma the

I'm watching the OC preview teaser thing now, and it makes me want to watch the first season again.

Posted by subtitles at 8:10 AM | Personal

Nightswimming, Deserves a quiet night.

Beer's nice. Nice cold beer. I think I've really come around on Becks; Bret Easton Ellis knows his shit - or is it Donna Tartt?

I'm increasingly fond of my new lamp, and am looking forward to the next one. Anyone going to IKEA is welcome to join me. I also need to go to Kino at Taka to replace a pen.

Entourage isn't too bad; again, fondness. As with the first season, Dead Like Me is picking up towards the end of the season. I also now have a nice pretty flower.

I started this post to write about something, which I now think I've forgotten - it might have been the lamp, but that doesn't seem quite right. My Audigy 2 NX is nice, except for the clicks - but I'll check that out some other time.

Michel, apparently, is another satisfied customer of the PX 100 - I was a bit too alarmist about warning him off the PX 200/250, since they're so-called noise cancelling - basically they're not as comfortable and the reviews say they don't sound as good.

I have the sudden urge to use my webcam, but I'm sure no one'd be particularly interested. It's probably because it's now perched nicely on my replaced monitor that is much better than the previous one.

Posted by subtitles at 7:43 AM | Personal

September 16, 2004

All over the place

Mozilla/Firefox fanboyness annoys the fuck out of me. To be fair I'm the last one to complain about people being evangelists (read: fanboys) even though I do; but the amount of news coverage that Firefox gets is ridiculous.

Yeah, boo hoo, you've finally gotten to the point where your precious open source sensibilities allow you to finally deem your product 1.0 ready - big fucking whoop.

Louis could not in good conscience recommend Firefox to anybody - though I've really begun to come around to how really evil it is using IE. Opera has a multitude of flaws that I'd admit to anybody, but it doesn't get close to the kind of news coverage that M/F gets.

I'd like to say that with 7.6, and the startup options of turning off mail and the sidebar, Opera is coming close to being as simple off the bat and free of annoyances as FF/IE, but I've come to the conclusion that to ordinary people (ie: Peishan) SETTINGS ARE SCARY. In my moment of weakness I really don't blame these people. Changing things, especially before you use something, is scary - irrational or not, the fears of changing things and things breaking is not unfounded - these are people who have lived with the nightmare that was windows 9x after all. It should be like an appliance. And I say that and yet those fucking remote control menus drive me absolutely crazy.

Posted by subtitles at 1:12 PM | Computer Stuff

September 14, 2004

Powermatic

Powermatic are the distributers for my CMV monitor, and hence they handle the tech support for it. My problem was basically that the backlight on my 15 inch LCD was a bit too bright at the sides and the top - a manufacturer's flaw if I ever saw one. I brought it in the first time and it was okay, they changed the panel and everything seemed fine, and it was better, but the sides were still too bright, and I wasn't wild about the unevenness of the top viewing angle. So I brought it in again and they replaced the whole thing and I'm happier.

Granted it would have been nice if none of this was necessary, but every once in a while you're bound to have problems - just nice to know that these guys aren't too bad about it. Other than the fact that they're a bit annoying about asking for serial no.s and registration, the experience wasn't bad. Nice mild mannered tech guy who actually does the repairs, Mr. Liew. And I suppose it helped that it's very near Potong Pasir.

Posted by subtitles at 6:47 AM | Articles

September 4, 2004

Ideas for CASE

1) Starhub and its addition of "free services" that will later have to be paid for - without advertising the fact anywhere except your bill.

2) The complete and utter inability to opt-out of M1 SPAM. I typically get it about once or twice a week.

3) ATIP labelling on Recordable Media packaging - education on benchmarks and media scans.

4) Console in Sim Lim to check prices - price transparency is essential for consumer confidence.

Posted by subtitles at 4:08 AM | Personal

Sennheiser PX 100

I cannot be anything but impressed with this lovely piece of hardware. The reviews and pictures you see don't convey to you how *small* this pair of headphones is. I feels a bit fragile and flimsy, but it's just lovely and small. If you've not seen these things fold up into a little case like you'd put your sunglasses in, you're in for a treat, since the elegance of the solution is quite lovely.

The reviews also say to let them warm up over a couple of days, so I'll get back to you on how it sounds after a while, but as it is now, it's pretty sublime.

The most fantastic thing about it is the reason I bought it, but I was dubious about. It's so *comfortable*. They should sell it with taglines you'd normally see pimping condoms. Me and my pointy head and jutting specs will no longer constrain how long I can listen using headphones. Granted I've only had them on for an hour or two, but the impression of comfort is worthy of monkeys.

Go buy some. Prices in Sim Lim vary greatly, I bought mine for $73, which is what I'd get it for online in the states after you include shipping. I'm sure you can get it cheaper if you look, but it's saturday and a few dollars isn't going to keep me in Sim Lim a minute longer than I can stand. Just don't pay $98 for it - price transparency should really come further to the fore.

Posted by subtitles at 4:04 AM | Computer Stuff

September 1, 2004

Buy the Cow on Special Edition DVD

And so you wonder at there being a John Lennon episode of Freaks and Geeks, beyond the John Bonham one. And again the romance of doomed story cycles. And not milking it.

Posted by subtitles at 12:02 PM | Personal