HTC TyTN II

I recently mentioned that I was in the market for a new phone. It's time to retract that statement as it is no longer true - the main reason being that I now have a new phone!


Just in case it wasn't obvious from the title, I bought the HTC TyTN II. As far as I can tell, this phone has everything. In celebration of my new phone, I took a video of me unboxing it. Click the video below for some hot phone pron!!

iPhone

After 3 years of putting up with my shitty Treo 650, I have finally decided that I'm not going to put up with that pos anymore. Which means that I'm in the market for a new phone.

Currently, I'm thinking of getting a swanky new 3G phone. Hey, you know me - by day, mild mannered accountant - by night, gadget boy!!

Anyway, when I mentioned this to a colleague recently, her first response was - why don't you buy the new iPhone? Its only selling for HK$3,xxx at the moment (imported goods - the iPhone hasn't officially launched in HK yet). At the time, I gave a whole slew of technical reasons but it basically came down to the iPhone not having enough gadgets.

However, now it looks like I have another reason not to get the iPhone. Quite frankly, this kind of dodgy marketing from Apple really makes me hesitate from buying anything related to Apple. Ever.

For those who are afraid of links, a summary is below. As always. :)

When the iPhone first launched in the US, it was sold at retail for US$599. However, the price very quickly dropped to US$399 (this caused a huge uproar in the US from early adopters as they felt that the price drop was too soon after launch). Apple took an old iPhone and refurbished it. The refurbished phone is being sold at US$349, which is only a US$50 discount from a completely new phone.

At this point, I just want to add that I don't care what price Apple sells the refurbished iPhone at. As far as I'm concerned, they are free to set whatever price they like. The problem is that Apple are advertising the refurbished iPhone as having a discount of 42% (US$250) on the basis that the original price of an iPhone is US$599.

That is dodgy marketing and the kind of business practice that really doesn't encourage me to buy any Apple products.
Not cool.

Gerry in Singapore

As I mentioned before, I took the family to visit my brother in Singapore last weekend. Of course, I realised after I got back to HK that I completely forgot to buy my brother the brownie that I owe him!

Sorry bro - guess you'll have to come to HK if you want your brownie!
:p

Anyway, this is a picture of Gerry at the airport during our 3 hour delay. You can tell he is wondering when we can get on the plane!


Here is a picture of the missus holding Gerry. In the foreground are my brother's two daughters. The older one is a natural model. Every time I had the camera out, she would always notice and then smile at the camera! You can just see my brother's back through the car window.


The next picture is taken in my brother's study. His chairs are quite nice and the kids had a great time spinning on them. You can also see the front of my brother in the picture this time. Didn't manage to get his head in the frame though. For some reason, I have trouble capturing my relative's faces on camera....


While we were in Singapore, we took a trip to Chinatown for dim sum. We went to a restaurant called Yum Cha. Not bad (although not as good as HK obviously!).


This picture was taken in the Yum Cha restaurant. Gerry is having a great time banging on the drums. He's a natural musician!!

Belated Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to my blog
Happy Birthday to you.

Can you believe that I only just realised today that I've been blogging for over a year now? Its true - my first post was made on 24 January 2007. I can't believe I let the first anniversary of my blog go by without any comment!

Anyway, I first started this blog post primarily for the reason of exploring the whole web 2.0 thing. You may recall the whole thing was brought on by a presentation from my boss talking about natives and immigrants to technology. I mentioned a while ago that the main purpose of this blog was to give me a forum to rant and rave in - a chance to give voice to my own brand of lunacy.

After a year, I don't think the blog has changed much in scope. Looking at the categories, my favourite topic of conversation is Gerry. This has always been the case and I don't see this changing much in future. In fact, you can expect some more photos of Gerry soon!

My second favourite topic of conversation is video games. Despite the fact that I'm a hardcore gamer, this does surprise me. When I choose a blog topic, I do try to stay away from talking about video games (I save that for my gaming blog) unless it has a broader message I want to make. Looking back at some of my video game related posts, there seems to be a wide range of different posts. I guess you will just have to accept the fact that a lot of posts on my blog will be game related.

I guess the next milestone for my blog will be when I hit 1,000 visits. Currently, I'm at 868 visits which averages out to approx 66 visits per month. Wow - thats a lot more than I would have expected given that this blog is mainly read by family and friends. At this rate, I should hit 1,000 visits in another 2 months (or possibly sooner if I hit the refresh button on my browser a couple more times!!)

Haiku to heat

Well, I finally managed to make it to Singapore despite the best efforts of Cathay Pacific. We were supposed to fly out to SG yesterday afternoon. The timing would have enabled us to arrive in SG at around 8pm in the evening which would have been perfect for my brother to get off work and then take us out for an evening meal.

Unfortunately, Cathay Pacific had other ideas and due to a 3 hour delay in the flight, we didn't actually arrive in SG till 11pm. So much for dinner...

Anyway, its really good to be in SG again. As you know, the weather in HK lately has been miserably cold and it feels great to finally have some warm weather. The temperature when we arrived last night was 27C - a far cry from the 5C at my home in HK!!

In celebration of this warm weather, I have decided to subject you to some bad poetry:


So cold in Hong Kong
much warmer in Singapore
why should I return?

Carrot cake

As I mentioned on Monday, the missus and I went out to Chesa for our Valentine's day dinner. However, over the weekend, I put on my Delia Smith hat again and baked a carrot cake. Not just any carrot cake but a low fat carrot cake! I'm so healthy...

Actually, I was quite worried as I was making the carrot cake. Up till now, the various baking that I've done has been very simple - bung all the ingredients together, mix and then bake. However, the carrot cake is a bit more complex as you have to separately make the topping and also the syrup glaze.

And then, when the cake was baking, it really didn't look like a carrot cake. All in all, when I took my first bite, I was very worried about the outcome. Luckily, the cake turned out okay and tasted quite nice.

I wouldn't say I was 100% satisfied with the results though. The cake was a bit darker and also a bit more dense than a carrot cake should be. I suspect this is because the recipe was for a low fat carrot cake hence the texture was a bit off. It probably didn't help that I also cut back on some of the less healthy ingredients. I guess this is the price you pay for a "low fat" cake.

Anyway, here is a picture of the finished product. The cherries weren't actually in the recipe. However, a friend of mine joined us for dinner that night and he brought some cherries with him. Very fortunate for us as the cherries went very well with the carrot cake.



Another picture of the cake taken from a higher angle. You can see that my knife work is a bit poor as the topping is a little off. Still, at least it gives it that home baked feel!


Here is 1 portion of the cake. If you look closely, you can see the carrot strands. Still not sure why the cake is so much darker than normal carrot cake though.


Naturally, we gave some to Gerry. He really liked the topping. He has an extremely sweet tooth - just like his mum.


Another picture of Gerry and the carrot cake.
:)

Chesa

As you all know, valentines day is creeping up on us. To the guys out there, we all know that valentines day is a complete commercial ripoff designed for the sole purpose of parting us fools from our money. To any girls reading this, Happy valentines day!

This year, the missus and I decided to have our valentines day celebration early - tonight in fact! So we went out to Chesa. Chesa is a nice little Swiss restaurant. Actually, it's the only Swiss restaurant I know of although I suspect there may be another one somewhere in Soho. Soho seems to have a large mix of foods from different cultures so I would be surprised if they didn't have a Swiss restaurant in there somewhere.

Anyway, Chesa is located inside the Peninsula hotel. At this point, those familiar with the location will already know that the restaurant is expensive. However, with Chesa, you really see (and taste) the quality all that money is buying. The decor is fabulous. The restuarant is quite small and decorated to look like the inside of a Swiss chalet. Service, as expected for the Peninsula hotel, is exemplary.

All of the dishes that we had were excellent. For starters we had escargots and foie gras (the foie gras here is very nice - much better than I expected actually!). For the main dish, we had the ox tongue which was very soft and succulent.

However, by far, the highlight of the meal was the cheese fondue. We ordered the fondue vaudoise. This is the most basic and most traditional fondue on the menu (they actually have quite a few varieties of fondue). I considered ordering one of the fancier fondues but I eventually decided to go with basic fondue for the simple reason that I don't eat fondue very often (the last time was at least 6-7 years ago, possibly longer) and I wanted to enjoy the simple yet elegant taste of a basic fondue.

Just in case you have no idea what a fondue is - here is a quick description. The fondue vaudoise is basically comprised of 2 different cheeses melted together with white wine. It arrives in a small pot and placed over buring wax to ensure the cheese is kept hot and runny. You then stab a piece of bread with a fondue fork and run a circle of eight in the pot so that it can soak up some cheese. Then, pop in your mouth and enjoy!

Yes, the meal was expensive - and I say this based on their normal prices and not some inflated "valentines day special" price. However, the quality is such that I feel you really get your money's worth.

Definite thumbs up!!

Britons and history

This is just sad.

For those with a phobia of clicking links, here is a quick summary. Basically, UKTV conducted a survey in the UK of 3,000 people. The survey consisted of asking these people whether they thought certain people (for example, Sherlock Holmes) were real or not. According to the survey, 58% of people believe that Sherlock Holmes actually existed...

As I said above, that is just sad.

As you know, I am educated in Britain. I have always believed that the British education system is one of the best in the world (not that I'm biased or anything!). And then I read an article like this and think - the state of education in Britain must really be dropping.

But then, like a flash of genius, something occurs to me! The article says that they surveyed 3,000 people. I'm guessing they just grabbed 3,000 random people on the street and asked them questions. Obviously, the people running the survey deliberately skewed the results by going to a neighbourhood with lots of neds (or their equivalent)!

Clearly, Britons can't be that stupid!
(Hooray for cognitive dissonance!)

Freezing my nuts off!

It has been bloody cold over the last week or two in Hong Kong and particularly frosty this weekend. Part of the reason for this is that South China was recently hit by the worst snowstorm its had in 50 years. That cold wind just blows straight down to HK.

Wintertime in HK is generally not one of my favourite seasons. The problem is that in HK, there is no central heating. This means that when the temperature turns really cold, the only thing you can do is to put on a heavy jacket (and yes, I mean at home!). Actually, that's not quite true. There are ways to keep warm if you wanna get creative.

In the past, whenever it got this cold, the missus and I would cuddle up on the sofa with a heavy blanket and watch a DVD. After a little bit of cuddling under the blanket, you really start to warm up and you just don't feel the cold anymore. Plus, its a great way to spend time with your wife! If you've never tried it, I would suggest you go somewhere cold for a holiday just so you can experience it. Trust me - the feeling is great.

Unfortunately, we can no longer do that. With Gerry running around, its impossible to stay under the blanket for long. Even after he goes to sleep, the fact that the maid is wandering around doing chores or banging away in the kitchen really spoils the mood.

Still, as they say, we'll always have Paris...