From the category archives:

Misc

Meet My New Toy

So after some long considerations, I decided to get myself a new camera to replace my old used to be trusted Canon Powershot S50 which has been very good for the past 6 years, following me wherever I go.

Now, the S50 is starting to be a real pain in the ***. The metal casing is starting to crack again even after I’ve sent it to the service center last year. And it’s getting very, very slow in responding. Probably I’m impatient.

The S50 still working today but the longer I use my 40D, the more I feel I need a replace the S50.

I wanted a camera to complement my40D.

The size is important.

I don’t want a brick like my 40D to carry everywhere. Something of a size of my palm just fits nicely. I can put it in pockets and convenient enough for me to carry wherever I wanted and reduce the attention the 40D gets.

Functionality is also important.

I want a camera that has the similar functions of a DLSR; ie: manual settings and raw capabilities. The S50 has similar functionality, so there is no way I would want something lesser than that.

Besides, it needs to be also a good underwater camera.

I don’t want to be buying another camera just for diving, nor would I want to bring my 40D down to the depths of the ocean. If the casing is flooded, not only my 40D is a gone case, the underwater housing is also gone. And the underwater housing costs as much as the 40D body.

Based on these 3 considerations, I started to look for a new camera. Canon is always the brand I turn to. So, there’s not really much to look. Just look for the top P&S range of camera and I’ll have my camera.

Powershot G9 was my previous choice. But I didnt get it as I couldn’t justify the purchase to myself. Over the years, I’ve learned not to purchase something based on emotion (ie: just because I wanted it), and then justify it by logic.

9 out of 10 times, I just could not justify it. That was a year ago. The G9 can wait, I told myself.

Late last year, the Powershot G10 was released. And 7 weeks ago I really saw the need to have one.

And since then, it’s been nothing but great.

Canon Poweshot G10

Canon Poweshot G10

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3.5km Around Hanoi in 5 Minutes

A Genuine Taxi Meter

A Genuine Taxi Meter

For all my 4 weeks here here, I only took taxi from this one company, Mailinh.Whether it’s to go to office, back to hotel, sightseeing or anywhere I wanted to go in and around Hanoi, Mailinh it is.

The other evening, we were somewhere in downtown Hanoi wanted to go to the Old Quater after dinner. I would say it’s probably 2km away if the taxi takes the furthest route.

Because there were no Mailinh taxis nearby, so we just took another company, Taxi CP since it’s only 2km (at the furthest) away.

After 5 minutes in the taxi, I noticed the meter was already at 3.5km and it’s fare is 38,000 VND. I wondered how far could we get around downtown Hanoi in just 5 minutes?

3.5km? You must be joking.

For the sake of comparison, I pay around 60,000 – 75,000 VND daily to office for a 25-30 minutes, 6-7 km taxi ride.

So I kept quiet until we reached our destination. At the end, it was 75,000 VND for 7.5km. Argued with him but like most of the taxi drivers here, he doesn’t understand a single word of English. Instead, he kept pointing to the meter.

At the end, we ended up with 60,000 VND. Till now, I was not really satisfied as the actual far would be just around 20,000 VND. Next time, remember to make sure that the taxi meter is enclosed in a sealed case. This taxi didn’t have teh sealed case.

Anyway, that’s just another bad taxi experience we all get.

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Enrich Gold

Some time last year, I wrote about why I prefer SQ compared to MAS albeit the 2 hours transit time in Changi. The last time I was on a MH plane was November 2008, and the one before it was October 2007. I was flying SQ all the time in between.

A few weeks back, I was at the MAS office in Penang to inquire about redeeming all my remaining miles. Since I don’t plan to fly with them anymore, I didn’t care what sort of Enrich card they’re giving me. I was on a photocopy Blue Enrich card for 3 years and they don’t bother to send me a real card even I’m eligible to be upgraded to Silver card already.

Over the years, I made several requests to them to send me the real card but nothing arrived (usually they’ll send you the card upon registering and activating your account).

I complained again that day. But I didn’t hope to get anything out of it since I don’t plan to fly with them anymore.

Yesterday, to my surprise, they sent an Enrich Gold card to my home.

Upon checking out their website to see what’s in for me for the Gold card, I do find certain useful benefits which might make me consider MAS again under certain circumstances.

Here they are :

Golden Lounge
All Enrich Gold members, even when traveling Economy Class, will be invited to use the Golden Lounge. You will also be allowed to invite one guest who is flying on Malaysia Airlines to join you at the Golden Lounge. At airports where Malaysia Airlines has no Golden Lounges, Enrich Gold members will be entitled access to third party lounges (only for departures).

Priority Check-in
Priority Check-In allows you to check-in for your flight at any available Business Class and First Class counter, no matter what class you’re travelling on.

Priority Boarding
Enjoy Priority Boarding which allows you to pre-board the aircraft at the same time as First Class and Business Class passengers, even when you’re flying Economy Class.

and the MOST IMPORTANT one of all…

Excess Baggage Allowance
An additional 50% excess baggage allowance over and above the entitlement of your class of travel will be awarded to you wherever and whenever you fly with us.

Flying with MH again?

Maybe…

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On New Year’s Eve

I remembered a piece of news I read on new year’s eve. It was the Selangor CPO saying that he’ll increase the police presence at places where the celebrations are held. The last time I was at Bukit Bintang for New Year’s eve, I couldn’t see any policemen at all!

Okay..maybe a few.

Thousands of people were at Jalan Bukit Bintang that night and I could merely walk or see the ground. Its hard to even turn my body around when people were pushing left and right.

This time, I’m not too sure. I guess it’s almost the same. Probably you can see policemen around. Afterall, the last time I was out on new year’s eve was 7-8 years ago. New year’s eve is the day you stay at home and avoid cramming with those drunk bastards everywhere along the street and getting caught in the traffic jam which takes 3-4 hours to reach home instead of the normal 30 minutes. Not forgetting also the road blocks you’ll need to go through and who knows if your first night of the new year would be spent in the lockup, like my friend.

So, stay at home.

I’ve stayed at home for the past 7 years (minus 1 year when I was in Colombo staring at the Indian ocean all by myself). So, I thought I should get away to somewhere this time around. And it was Paris.

I was really surprised with the very, very and very heavy police presence along the 2km Champs-Elysées on New Years eve. Less than every 100 metres I walk, I could see groups of 10 riot policemen clad in armor, helmets, knee and elbow protectors, and face shields.

I don’t know how many they are just along Champs-Elysées. It could be easily around 700 of them, or maybe more. In short, I could really feel the police presence there. Turn my head either left or right, and I can see them almost everywhere.

Do you know what the French do beside popping the champagne and kiss all night long along Champs-Elysée even when there are lots of policemen around?

No, they don’t spray foams on your cars, nor write Happy New Year on your car bonnet, or draw Santa’s face on your rooftop.

Instead, they torch your car. Vandalism to the max. It was reported that the numbers increased by 30% this year with more than 1000 cars burned.

Another interesting one was when I was on my way to Champs-Elysées with the metro. There were groups of 10-15 youths metro-hopping. They would hop between trains, squeeze into the already packed train and start singing, pushing each other and punching the roof. Then they get down at the next station and board the next train.

Besides all these, it was really good to welcome the new year in Paris even though there were no fireworks display (I only got to know about this 2 hours before leaving for Paris).

For the past 7 years (minus 2006 when I was in Colombo), I’ve been welcoming the new year at home. I wouldn’t get out from home at all if I’m in Malaysia for these kinds of days. We all know how long it takes to reach home after the celebrations.

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Where’s My Free DSLR Strap?

I was looking through my RSS reader and came across Scott’s blog and came to know what SmugMug is giving away a FREE DSLR camera strap to it’s customers!

And this got me thinking, what’s Flickr doing? I’ve been a member almost 3 years but, I received nothing.

From the photos and description of the strap, it looks to me that a similar strap would set me back about RM50 if I’m to buy one myself. Anyway, it’s not about the money or free strap. I think I’ll look better with the SmugMug strap instead of CANON DIGITAL.

So Flickr, I’m waiting for something similar for 2009.

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On Daylight Saving Time

When I was a kid, I didn’t  know what was DST.

I always see the word daylight saving time printed on my old Casio digital watch. But I have no idea what it was. All I knew was that there would be time differences during the summer and such. Still I didn’t get it.

Then there was Champions League football. I would wake up in the middle of the night just to watch Man United play. I noticed how the kickoff times started to change from 2.45am to 3.45am towards the end of October. Not forgetting also the usual EPL kickoffs time from 7.45pm to 8.45pm.

I started to get a grasp of what DST is all about.

So, one day I looked up the Internet, asked Google and it replied with a simple phrase about DST.

Spring forward, fall back.

In simple terms, countries that observe DST will shift their clocks 1 hour forward during the spring so the sun appears to rise 1 hour later and sets 1 hour later thus making the day longer. And vice versa during the fall.

Therefore, I’m now 7 hours behind Malaysia.

Most of central Europe countries turned their clocks 1 hour backwards after daylight saving time has ended. I remember that DST will end sometime towards the end of October but I didn’t know it was on October. As far as my memory can recall, it’s on this coming weekend.

And when I checked again on Saturday night only did I realize that I had to turn my clock 1 hour backwards on Sunday 3.00 am to 2.00 am.

It suddenly appeared to me that winter is really coming. The sun used to set about 630pm last week. This week it’s 530pm.

The cloudy and rainy weather didn’t help either.

When I was here in December last year, the sun rose at 8.30am and set at 4.30pm.

Now, I really feel winter is coming real soon…

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A Brief History Class – Part 2

I think it was almost 10 minutes that we were chatting at the river banks.

“Did I bore you off? Do you want me to continue?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Because of the Treaty of Versailles, our country was weakened. They took away our lands and military because they were afraid we’ll be more powerful than they are. They didn’t want to lose their powers in Europe to us.”

“So there came Hitler. He was a nationalist at that time and he wanted back those lands that were given away by the Treaty or Versailles. So he gathered all his men and said to the Allied Forces; We want our lands back and if you’re not giving them back, we’ll take it!”

“He attacked and invaded Rhineland, Austria, the borders of Czechoslovakia and then Poland.”

Suddenly he stopped and started at me.

“And do you know how World War 2 started in Europe?”

I shook my head.

“It was the 1st of September of 1939 when Hitler attacked Poland. Very soon after that, Poland’s allies declared war on us. Everyone, including the UK, France, Australia, US, New Zealand, Canada and a few more countries.”

“You see, everything they wrote on the papers labeled Hitler as the bad guy. In fact, he’s a nationalist and hero in Germany, you know? He’s just taking back what was taken away from us.”

By now, it was coming to 20 minutes that we were chatting.

“Oh, I can see my friend waiting for me opposite the road. I got to go. I hope you’ve learned something and have a wonderful trip back.”

We shook hands and I thanked him for his brief history class.

This was the second time that someone was talking to me about the history of the place since I was here 2 months ago. The first was in Berchtesgaden where a 80+ year old man talked to me how happy he was to be back there since he was there during World War 2 as an American soldier.

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