My New Phone - Google Nexus 1

Its been 2 years since I got my HTC touch cruise and its showing its signs.  Takes longer to charge and getting slower to use everyday.  And although I hard reseted it to make it go faster.   It still slow compare to the latest smartphones out there in accessing the web.  Blame WM 6.1...

I have been using smartphones with windows mobile ever since when I was in the army.  Its a pretty good PDA Os( first device was the casio E500 :P before my iPaq)

So HTC touch cruise will be my last Windows phone.  Especially true when I saw my friend's Hero running Andriod.  I have read much about it and already planned to get such a device.  When the hardware and the OS is mature enough.  The phone was released only recently and you could only buy it via Google web store.  As usual, I read about it and was still undecided until another geek friend of mine who used to own an iPhone bought it and show it to me.  And I'm sold. 

I have been using it for more than a week and so far so good, it met my expectations.  There are 3 cons I find concerning this phone which I hope they will be improvements..

1st thing is that the apps can only be installed on the phone main memory (SD card for notes, photos, videos and music nia) 512MB and preinstalled with stuffs.. which left only 192mb for your other apps..  This is ridiculously small in this era leh... I do heard they are working on this and I hope they will come up with an update on this issue.

2nd is a missing stylus... yes, I still enjoying poking a screen with my plastic pen on my WM devices... Just a habit I need to get rid of. Onscreen keyboard is good but I like ease of copy and paste using a stylus on WM.  Even the iPhone did a better job in selecting text with their magnifying glass highlighting oiption(although still loose to a stylus though).

3rd is the battery life.  A bit weak as I am already a light user and it could only last less than 48hrs (less than 2 days)

So some may ask.. why not get an Iphone?? 3 reasons

1)Bloody Itunes sucks big time as a syncing software.  And you need to connect physically with the computer to copy music and files.  No such issues with Andriod. No such issue with WM too since active sync allow bluetooth syncing too! :)

2)Closed Source.  Can't change or hack the device easily as its closed source.  You can root it but confirm spoill the warranty of the device.  Again, no such issues with andriod phones., easier to root (if you want too) and you can unroot it back  :P

3)Too many iPhonies , this is a lousy reason to some but I just hate to be one of the crowd... I like to be different (call me wierd but its just me..) People using canon and nikon cameras and switching camp while I still stuck with Sony/Minolta hehe..

Price with GST included is a whopping $825.  My most expensive phone till date... But its practically a mini computer (bloody 1 Ghz processor leh).  Will last until it spoils or the Nexus 6 model is released.. :P

 

Encountered another Car Bully (Funny)

This happened today and its so interesting that I have to quickly note it down.  I went to Chinatown in the morning with 2 colleagues to do some photography street shoot.  Then since my pay is out.  I dropped by Golden Mile Complex to TT my monthy income to my wife.

Was walking down Beach Road towards Concourse and passing the carpark gate of Golden Mile Cinema Complex when I heard a loud "BEEP".

Jolted so I stopped and a White Honda Hatcback zoom pass me, inches away from where I stand.  Furious on such display of dangerous driving, I immediately kick the car with my feet.  The driver (big fat ugly 20 plus guy) stopped and opened his door and ran out to confront me.

Practically he was shouting verbal abuses loudly and screaming at me for kicking his car.  I talk backed nicely and asked him why he drives so dangerously and he pushed the matter aside by saying the road is your father's one ah (in hokkien of course)continued to say I vandalised his car and want to call police.  So I retorted and ask him to call police then as I feel he is also threatening my safety by being abusive, moreover the road also does not belong to him anyway :P  (I think I was being cheeky anyway and he could not stand it.)  The next thing is his friend came out to confront me too and so I say are you two going to punch me or what?  And the driver loudly declared.  "If this is not Singapore, I already punch you one, but I call police, when police come you better pay up!!"  "Wah, I so scared!" I said... hehehe.  

Then come the interesting part.  Out of the blue, 3 Ah Bengs came out from no where with badges on their shirt and confronted the driver.  One of them came towards me and show me his ID and say CID... hahah plain clothes police!  The chap say they heard some commotion and asked me what happened so I told him the truth.  While I was chatting with him, the other two suddenly spotted a suspicious item in his car.  A bloody extendable night stick!! Ho Seh Liao!  Illegal weapon!  The plains clothes policeman questioned the driver why he has such a device, want to "Pa Lang" (Hit people) is it.  The driver no longer shouting liao..  became a small little dog like that and kena questioned by the 2 policeman.  Then suddenly more plain clothes policeman!!! haha more than 10 of them IIRC.  One of the Ah Beng called a blue shirt chap (around my age but has a mostache) Sir and informed him about this incident.  Think the is the captain of the team and he spots a long tail hair one leh... Ma Cham Gangster.. He questioned the driver first and actually more interested in his weapon rather then my incident.  Then he say to the driver, "Ohhh, you call police liao har.. can can.. but your item here is illegal one hor. Why u carry?"  The driver gave an explanation (more like an excuse) say that he travel to JB often and he need this for protection.... hmmm.... 

So anyway, the blue shirt chap came to me and ask me did the driver used the stick in front of me anot.  So i just say no and inform him I did not know he was carrying such a device anyway.  Then he ask me why I kick his car and I explain to him exactly what happened and he believes me (naturally) .  Then he ask for my IC and both the driver and his companion IC also.  And proceeded to make some calls (Background check .. hahaha ... me sure clean, the driver I dunno liao lo)

So 10 mins later, the policeman came and the blue chap brief them.  So the uniform policeman asked me again the whole incident and he told me that there are 2 ways to sort things out.  First, I did kick his car and dirtied his car (got my footprint leh! hehe) but damage is not big enough so if I don't say sorry, he need to pass my particulars to the driver and vice versa so he can proceed to civilian court to "settle" with me.  So its either I say Sorry or Court Case but initiated by him.

Say Sorry?? hahah no problem as I find I in better position.  So I say I no problem with saying sorry but he dun even want to listen or accept my apology how?? So the policeman say he will talk to him.

So in the end, I still say Sorry to him and he LL accepted it.  (I think in the heart he want to tear me apart liao.. HAHAHA) but I am so bloody happy.  Because after I said sorry and happily walking away from the scene.  This joker and his friend were asked to stay behind.  As he will be questioned for possessing a dangerous and illegal concealment weapon.  I did not know if he got charged or arrested but most probably his weapon will be confiscated and given a warning. (I think the policeman told him he will let the other charge go if he let me go too.. :P)

What a day!  The one who called the police in the end got into more trouble.  And yeah, I think the policeman is right that I should not have kicked his car.  But he himself brought this to himself.  In Chinese 自作自受！

PS. Come to think of it... I think he was trying to make me throw the first punch but I never bother.  I always win my argument as I don't believe in violence or verbal abuse.  And lucky he never use that night stick on me or else I think I will be writing this in a hospital... :P

Family shots in Dec 2009 and Jan 2010

Took this roll of Sensia 400 on my recent trip.  Collected it today and quite happy to see the results.  The good thing about shooting slides and scanned by a good lab is that you don't really need to post processed it at all.  Another good scan did by KT labs, colours are more true to the slides and not too contrasty.  Great job done! :)

Again, you may click on the slideshow to see the higher resolution in Picasa.

Nude!

I have a roll of Lucky 100 in Thailand so loaded into my film camera and started shooting Nude...Hehe.. Since I got 2 nude models that listens to me at home, no harm experimenting some shots.  Posted at Picasa web.  Feel free to click on the slideshow to get a bigger version.

 

Viva La Vida! - PSB Domino Dancing Style

Ok.  Fanboy post here again for the Pet Shop Boys.  They are great at doing covers.  Their list of covers includes

Always on my mind by Elvis
Go West by the Village People
Where the streets have no names by U2
Always on my mind by Sterling Void.

I pretty like all of them as they managed to turn these classic rock and ballads to something dancy and poppy.. haha.. I'm more of a poppy guy.  Especially the U2 melody which they mixed the song with I can't take my eyes off you.... brillant stuff.

So the recent christmas while in thailand I was surfing the web and found out they did it again with another cover.  Viva La Vida by Coldplay.  Actually the song was already performed on their tour recently but it was so well received that they throw the song in their special Xmas EP album.

Basically the title means Long Live Live in English.   The song bascially is about a King who lost his power to rule... And what they did was again brillant stuff... merging my favourite song Domino Dancing into the song.  Here's the radio edit version of the song... Watch them all fall down!

 

The first sunrise of the year.

 

I took this just this morning at my usual spot (about 10mins walk from my house).  I did regret having not bring my Hassy to Thailand to capture this scene.  This shot was taken with my Sony A900 and it has been a while I have been shooting digital.  For the last quarter in 2009.  I was shooting film more often then digital, especially for serious landscape work.  The scene above is tweaked actually to give a more bluish and purple tone.  The orginal is actually a bit flat but I am quite please with this digital version actually.

And some readers did mentioned I have not posted more photos of my ah boy.  Here's one just an update for all on how he has grown.. This photo kinds of give me the same response and feeling when I took the photo above.  Just plain Happiness :P

Not going to write too much... want to spend more time with them now.

Girl patting ah boy to sleep...

Wife took this while I was away... just plain cute :P