Dance like no one's watching

I’ve not gone back to Canteen (aka Il Fiore) since my company moved out of Singapore Land Tower in Nov 2009.  Some of us decided to revisit it for old times’ sake.  Pics below!!

Remembering 31 Dec 2010…

Our office was only opened half day, after which Napkin, Booze Queen & I grabbed a quick drink at Blarney’s @ Icon.  That’s my Guiness looking kind of stunted next to Booze Queen’s Erdinger… just like how my handbag looks stunted next to hers.  Hehe.

Booze Queen & I adjourned to “Canteen” after that. It’s been more than a year since I visited canteen – last time was on the last day our office was at Singapore Land Tower (Nov 2009). 

Some other friends arrived before us and ordered the above food.  Tip – the weird squid thingy is not nice.

I ordered my usual drink from canteen, vodka cranberry.  Sadly, the bartender who recognises us has left to be a money broker.. and I was given this super weak vodka cranberry.  No alcohol at all man!!

My favourite potato chips!

The otak-otak is fantastic!!

Canteen gave out these free jello shots which I think we deserved, after the weak drinks I had.

Anyway, here’s a toast to the year gone by.  May we all have a better 2011.  God bless!!

Having used the N8 for close to 2 months now, there’re 2 things that annoy me.

First, why are users in Singapore restricted to English, Malay & Chinese?  What can’t I install a myriad of languages like in the iOS?  I’m told I need to go to Nokia Care Centre to get them to install additional language packs.  Isn’t this a waste of my time & the care centre personnel’s time?  If it can’t be preinstalled, at least let it be downloadable online!!

My second peeve is with the T9 keyboard.  For words that I input into the dictionary, sometimes, when typing a sentence, the word is auto-capitalised mid-sentence.  My previous Nokias never had this problem!  Darn annoying to have to select the small caps version of the word.  Grr.  I gotta find time to feedback to Nokia about this!!

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[Update]
Read this review about the N8 http://rickycadden.com/2010/11/nokia-n8-review/ and I must say I totally agree about the annoying bit about the punctuation inconsistencies! Hope it gets resolved in the next firmware. For now, I’m happy with using Swype to type longer texts (it’s nifty & fast) while I memorise how to get the right punctuation due to the inconsistencies.

Had a Christmas lunch with Booze Queen and Azure just now.  We went to PS Cafe at Ann Siang Hill Park.  Really fantastic place.  I’m super full now!  Heh.

Here’s a pic of my iced mocha in Sepia tones.  Nice retro looking pic.  😀

I had the caesar salad with blackened salmon.  It was delicious!

Azure had this egg crab tart.  There were strong hints of lemongrass in it… so the dish was very “Thai” to me.  Heh.

Booze Queen had this chicken for lunch though the name of the dish escapes me now.  The spinach cooked with garlic was really good.

The 3 of us also shared this friends fries with truffle oil… salty… but darn yummy!

After the super filling lunch, I thought I would be full & sleepy in the office.. but I was wrong.  ‘Cos I’m being irritated and kept awake by a colleague who brought his baby to office YET AGAIN.  I seriously don’t know why people bring their kids to work.  If your kid can shut up, fine.  But it’s damn blardy annoying to have a wailing baby in office.  I don’t want to take any calls now ‘cos it’ll be so embarrassing for clients to hear a crying baby in the background – not professional at all!

I saw this sign outside PS Cafe.

I think we need to hang something like that at our office too!!

(Pictures taken with the Nokia N8!!)

FM93.3 has been playing JJ Lin’s è®°å¾— quite regularly recently. I remember the first time I heard this song was during this songwriter forum at 爱琴海. JJ Lin was still an unknown singer then and was about to relocate to to taiwan to start his singing career. The melody of the song was written by him but the original lyrics were by his then regular collaborator, also a Singaporean whose name I’ve since forgotten. When the demo was presented to A-Mei, the melody was selected but the recording company got someone to rewrite the lyrics. King of sad for the guy who wrote the lyrics. I sometimes wonder what happened to him since. Did he continue pursuing a career in song writing? Or did he go into another career after NS?

I recall the other song writers teasing JJ Lin for looking like a skinnier version of William So. JJ also wore tinted glasses that day and because the lights were dim, when JJ wanted to play and sing the original lyrics of the song, he had to remove his tinted glasses resulting in more jibes. Heh. It was a funny day.

Time has really flown since then. I’m glad JJ has made it big. He’s very talented musically and I’m always pro local artistes.

Posted from my Nokia N8

Downloaded the Nokia Battery app yesterday. Pretty cool. Here are some screenshots. 🙂

Not sure what practical use it’ll have but it entertains me for now. Haha.

Posted from my Nokia N8

Not sure if anyone has noticed but while I’m pretty full of praises for the N8, I’ve never actually told anyone to “go get it” and this includes my husband!  The reason for this is because I think getting a handphone that you are satisfied with boils down to personal preference; so while I can share how happy I am with the N8, I cannot tell you how happy you may be with the N8.  I’ve tried to give reasons as to why I like the N8 and what I’ve been able to achieve with it, in hope that these reasons can help others decide if the N8 is the correct phone for them. 

Similarly, I’ve often condemned the iPhone but I hope those who’ve heard my complains realise that the reasons I hate the iPhone are also very personal ones, e.g. I really struggle with a Qwerty keyboard (unless it comes with SWYPE!!).  I also require my phone to take good photos (‘cos I loooooooooooooove snapping photos of my bunnies and of the food I eat and I don’t want to carry my digicam around with me) and the iPhone’s camera sucks (relative to Nokia’s).  I’m also not a person who’s big on games.  The few games that I like are, Raving Rabbids (on my X6), Angry Birds, Bouncing Bricks (and various variations of it) & Monopoly (had it on I can’t remember my N95 or N82 and now on my N8).

Being able to customise my hp is also very important to me.  One of the first things i do everytime i get a new Nokia is to set up Contact Groups (e.g. family, office, hubby & buddies) and set individual ringtones for these groups.  Being somewhat obsessive compulsive, I have had the following phone profile modes for the past 7-8 years, i.e. General Profile (normal ringing tone w/ no vibration alert), Office Profile (a much softer ringing tone), Outdoors Profile (super loud + vibrate mode on), Silent mode (only vibrates) and Privacy Profile (phone only rings when certain Contact Groups call – super important when I’m on leave or on MC).  To date, Nokia is the only manufacturer that has offered me this customisation feature.  I would be terribly upset if I had to use a phone without my customised profile modes.

I could go on for another few pages on why I love Nokia but I think I’ve made my point clear as to why people need to take personal responsibility over what makes them happy.  In my boss’ words – you live and die by your decision.  (Er, though he said that to me when he asked me to decide who to hire).  Hahahha.

I made a comment on Twitter earlier that I’m glad Nokia is putting a concerted effort into marketing the Nokia N8 because it’s a great phone and I hope it will help Nokia recapture market share.  A friend of mine replied saying that I’m the only one who has kind comments on it and one of his “jocks” sold it after 2 hours.  My instant reply was perhaps that’s why a jock is called a jock.  Friend replied saying that he meant DJ and not sports jock… my reply was, I know but I’m starting to see similarities.

Seriously.  I really hate it when people make criticisms without backing it up with hard evidence.  I didn’t take offence then but during lunch with another friend on Thurs, he mentioned that he wouldn’t get the N8 because it’s Symbian.  This is coming from someone who has never tried the Symbian^3 OS and whose Nexus One was in the service centre for the 2nd time over a spoilt on/off button.  And even if we were to talk about the S60 version 5, I really cannot comprehend when people make baseless comments like, “it’s so passe”.  So what exactly about it is passe? 

I strongly believe that there is no perfect phone but there will be phones that suit your individual needs more than others.  For example, some reviewers have complained that there is no QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode for the N8, obviously assuming that the entire world only uses QWERTY keyboard.  Well, I and some others I know, way prefer to use an alphanumeric keyboard and I appreciate the fact that i am given a choice with my Nokia.

Although I have suggested on more than one occassion that Nokia should develop its own push technology like the blackberry or iPhone, but in all fairness, I also have to acknowledge that the Symbian OS is not as battery draining as other operating systems.  For example, I have been running Whatsapp on my N8 and the Symbian Whatsapp requires the 3G connection to be open all the time (the BB and iPhone versions use push technology).  In spite of this, I can still tweet, read Weibo, surf Facebook, play Angry Birds / Monopoly, take calls, listen to music (via loudspeaker) and sms on my phone for about 1.5 days before the battery goes dead (please search online if you want to know the battery life specs).  I’m very sure this is testament of the decent battery life of the N8, as well as the fact that Symbian is not an OS that requires a tremendous amount of battery.

In short, there is no perfect phone.  Different people will have different requirements and expectations of their phones… but if you don’t do research and you don’t test a handphone before purchasing it, and then you complain about the phone being crappy and sell it within 2 hours… there’s only 1 way to describe this situation.  It’s called “user problem”.

People often say it’s difficult to take photos of pets and recently, I have to agree!  Horlicks and Pinky have been so hyper lately it’s hard to take photos of them.  They love to stick their noses in my camera lens so it’s damn difficult to get a clear shot of them.  Here’re some pics I took last night with my N8.  (Sometimes I wonder if they’re attracted by the hp charm I hung on my phone… maybe I should try taking photos with the charm next time).

Pinky attempting to charge into the house the minute I opened the sliding door.  Sorry for the blur spot on top – that’s my finger.  Was attempting to stop Pinky from rushing in and take the pic at the same time.

Pinky (right) & Horlicks (left) eat hay.

Horlicks – yanked all the hay out of the bowl.

Oops.. realised she was caught in the act.

A bit difficult to get a pic of Coffee ‘cos he’s all black!  And it’s not that bright at the sideyard.

Coffee, docile from being patted.

Pinky, just finished doing his business in his home.  Haha.

Pinky (left & Horlicks (right).

Pinky, a little blinded by the N8’s focus light.  Sorry Pinky!

Pinky, eating.  Nothing new.

Finishing up their supper.

There.  Food’s almost all gone!!

This is a pretty fair review of the N8 – http://is.gd/hWzKC though i need to add that the N8 supports handwriting input for Chinese. It’s a rather cool feature which has not been mentioned in any reviews I’ve read so far, prob cos none of the reviewers write Chinese!

Using the Nokia WordPress 0.8.4 to post this now. Seems pretty good except typing is a little laggy .

Anyway, to add to my previous post, there aren’t many apps available for the N8 in ovistore. However, as symbian^3 is backward compatible with s60v5, i set my mobile phone as X6 and managed to install almost all old apps on my N8. All apps work so far except the Nokia Custom Dictionary has limited functions on the N8.