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The art of old watch: Seiko Sea Lion M88

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I don’t understand why but I’m always fond of old watches. Old cheap watches. Seiko doesn’t seem to be as cheap as the other brand I collect: Swatch, yet in the old days they aren’t expensive watches (most of its lines I would say). This line, Sea Lion, is a series of mechanical watches produced over 40 years ago. I’m particular fond of this model, M55, featuring a square- like (actually hexagon) case with a crown that shows dates and weekdays. Considering the date it’s produced: 1969, its design is extraordinary yet trendy that I don’t see why it can’t be worn now.

The watch, later i knew, was very common at the time it was produced, but it had lots of variations, much like what Swatch is doing now. The older ones don’t have weekdays while the rest later versions do. Some are even in Japanese versions with Kanji weekday characters.

The more i search the more i see it can be cheaper esp on ebay. People from Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, and even Hong Kong have loads of these watches somehow. They re- polish them, clean them, oil them, before selling them at reasonable price. Such M88, because of its large production, can be purchased around $50-80 (USD), depends on the condition and supply of original / after market bands / crystals etc.

I am now more info another watch which I’ll tell more next time.

Mac Lion Lesson 1: Fixing the evil new do

Alright alright – new stuff *should* be better than old stuff. For me who get used to the multi-touch ideas, I seriously don’t see the new cool bits of the new gestures. Okay there’s mission control, but since it’s something new, they would have to integrate it into the gestures so it’s not some sort of improvement anyway.

But there are things that cannot be forced to users, just like Windows always do to us:
Scroll up / down: using 2 fingers to scroll stuff was a revolutionary thing. Yes it’s still there, but why you turn it opposite as you *feel* that it should (why we oldies have been using mouse to control scrollbar for years just couldn’t get it).

Next is my 2nd dearest feature of using my trackpad: go back to prev / forward to next page in browser. Using 3 fingers, we used to browse pages quickly w/o pin-pointing to the back / forward button. After the upgrade? Gone! How could it be? After some searching I figured that it’s now called “Swipe between pages.” The default setting is to “scroll left or right with two fingers,” which, I never get it to work. Finally I changed it to “swipe with two or three fingers” and my shortcut is returned. Much appreciated. Still don’t understand why it changes such big behaviour w/o telling us.

Why is it so hard to get a morning drink in Central?

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Closed for the morning?? Isnt coffee a morning drink? Okay family matter – closed for 3 days.

End up went to Cafe Punta del Cielo… I think I have to keep remind these Filipino pros to give me warm milk all the time Any better recommendations anyone?

Voice Mail

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I’m sure I’m not the first one who thinks voicemail is a stupid thing. When it takes 5 seconds to realize the missed call and another 5 to see that there’s a voicemail message, you need another 10 sec to call there, another 10 sec to do a few clicks to figure out who left you a note. Ok here we go…

Ta da! it’s either someone who cuts the line ONLY after they realize “oh it’s Michael’s voicemail. I actually just want to make sure it’s Michael’s voicemail and… Bye!”, or, it’s someone who clicked the wrong button, phoned me unconsciously while s/he talks to a friend “oh that Michael bastard…”. Ok this is user habit and we can’t help with it. The worst part of the latter voice messages is not about the content, but lack of instruction on how to stop when I spot they are spam and delete them. What should I click? 7? 5? 9? 3? Clicking on random numbers never works: it sometimes rolls back a couple of seconds, replays from start, skips to next one, goes back to main menu, when all I want to do is to DELETE THE VOICE OF THAT BASTARD who accidentally left a message.

Sorry I don’t know how to. Yes there might be a manual but I won’t read it. These systems blame users like me for not using a manual, but the fact is nobody thought they need to be literate and read a manual in order to use a voicemail. It should be something that even grandma can do (in fact they are the frequent users). Did you remember when you first used email, did you take a course? Its a simple set of steps: check, click, read, click, reply, type, click, send. Done. Can we do it w/ voicemail? Definitely we can. Just that no one wanna spend resource to improve. Here’s my improvement plan.

First when we call voicemail system, it should simply play the new voicemail if there’s one (fortunately some already do so). The most important part is when I listen to the actual recording, if I want to do some actions, I don’t know what to click. So how to solve? Simple. Clicking any buttons should pause the recording, tell me a bunch of options: replay from start, fast forward, skip, delete, whatever. The point is, we need to know what to click! Don’t just leave us stuck in a guess forever.

Or, replace it with a FREE app to play these recordings. This is no longer 1980s.

Your short guide to slacking off @ Fiji

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I hate the fact that even though we always go travel in order to take a break / feel relaxed etc. I got to spend like 10 x travel days worth of time to prepare the trip.

Fiji is a great sun & beach place. It’s never super hot like Thailand / Malaysia / Philippines at this time because this is now winter (May – Oct), yet the Sun will easily get you tanned in 30min because it’s closer to the South Pole where there’s a hole in ozone. Fiji has 300+ islands meaning lots of resorts to choose from, ranging from private beach for your own, down to dorm rooms even on resorts w/ luxury rooms.

To go:
Getting to Fiji is a 1-hop flight from HK via Air Pacific, a not-so-advance company with rather old fleet, but it’s not budget since you still have 2 meals, with cup noodles(!) which is much needed. For my north American friends, they also have direct flight from LAX. Unless you travel in biz class, the only entertainment is a big protector with some movies couple years back, so prepare lots of books / gadgets before boarding with full battery.

The main island:
Once you land, you are at Nadi, Viti Levu, the biggest island of Fiji. Nadi is a fairly small city with the biggest attraction being the airport itself. There are couple of destinations around which takes few hrs to go, but my main attraction is the islands out there. Plus I heard lots of unfriendly stories about this main island place so we didnt spend much time around besides transfer waiting.

Traveling in/between islands:
There are mainly 2 companies serving the 2 big set of tourist islands: Mamanucas and Yasawas, but I believe they are operated by the same company. The cruise is very expensive compared to any other expense there: a 1-hour cruise to a close island would cost at least F$60, so if you travel as a couple and return on the same day, it costs F$240, which is about USD150, a night of stay at a standard resort there. So rather than doing island hopping, which the cruise company strongly asks you to, try to stay at an island a day or two to maximize the value. Yasawa Flyer has a backpacker package that lets you explore those islands by staying in them as a long X-day journey. Though the package may / may not be more expensive than what you expect, and some islands aren’t in the program.

The Islands:
At the west side of Fiji there are 2 sets of resort islands: Mamanuca and Yasawa. Most of Mamanuca islands are in reach within 2 hours of cruise, while Yasawa’s would take up to 4 hours. Because of such demographic reason Mamanuca has lots of big resorts catering families and couples who don’t want much trouble in transfer. Ask me if you are interested in knowing my experience, or simply search mikkol in TripAdviaor.com.

Expense:
Interestingly even though it seems like a heck lot to go there, once you are in islands, esp. in the remote ones @ Yasawas, they don’t cost as much as thought. Snorkeling costs < USD10, borrowing gears would cost the same, while beer is within USD5 – quite a bargain, considering the distance it takes to transport stuff to there.

Planning:
From HK since the plane departs and arrive on Monday Thursday and Saturday, trip can be usually 6, 8, 10, 12 days etc. Plane departs in the afternoon and arrives in the next Fiji morning, while it leaves in the morning and arrives in the afternoon. That means you “waste” 2 days from transportation already. With taking boat cruise to islands, you have not much time to really explore the true Fiji. That’s why I took 12 days.

Fiji is really awesome place to slack off.

Let the bullets fly

Who had the same thought as I did when they talked about bin Laden this morning?

Let the bullets fly

Let the bullets fly

Good luck to you. Obama and USA.

Hate the way HK Yahoo shows its text

If a) you use Mac b) you don’t have a really nice monitor (anything worse than / equal my Dell) c) you go to Yahoo HK website, you might hate the light colored Chinese text as much as I do. Is it such a big deal you say. Well it really tires my eyes.

Look at this:

My screen before

My screen before

It makes an old man blind.

What did they do? In layman terms they setup the web page to use a 15px text, in “very dark color”, with Arial or MingLiu if Arial cannot be used. What’s wrong?

1) The color sucks. I’m currently using this very dark gray color.

2) The texts might be okay on English or even numbers, but the Chinese texts, aww, it sucks. You can use Arial on Chinese. Arials are for Romans, which left MingLiu for Chinese. And because Mac doesn’t have MingLiu, the system picks something that doesn’t look too good, which resembles some school notes written in 5H pencil by a girl who prefers thin texts. The texts look slightly better when you click on each news it’ll make a change of color after some text-linking is done.

Nights with ugly reading, I finally did something to correct this. Greasemonkey thanks.

My screen now

My screen now

I’ve changed its style to: always use black on texts and picked a Chinese font called STHeiti that Mac looks well (and FYI, Mac actually has lots of default Chinese fonts to choose, check this out).

If you are interested, get the script here.

Damn the WordPress Mobile ate my post

Why they don’t ever think of Asian characters when developing stuff? :(

HKGolden channel in China?

Recently I was really impressed with a discussion channel online that got loads of funny stuff. They call themselves 隱藏你妹俱樂部:
http://group.mtime.com/queen/

The topics there seem so interesting that I got to register myself an account, join the group and view the content. This one really made me ROFL:

http://group.mtime.com/queen/discussion/1237154/
Yes clicking the link above will keep bouncing you back to the index page since you need to login, join the group until you see it. Not so intuitive, but I captured the post for you to read so you got the motive to join.

Warning: rather unusual pictures ahead. Not my point of view. View discretion is advised.

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Beat him up!

Saturday afternoon. Entered MTR heading for late lunch. Next to me a kid was crying silently. His mom was staring at him angrily. The conversation:
Mom: “Next time if he beats you again, don’t just stand here okay? Beat him back!”
Boy: “But I wasn’t standing there!”
M: “Then you gotta beat him back! What’s wrong with you?”
B: “But it (beating others) is against the school rules, Mom!”
M: “Who cares! Isn’t he against the rule when punching you?”
B: “Yes still… (got cut by mom)”
M: “Tell you what. Next time you better beat him back, otherwise don’t ever cone back home or I’ll beat you!”

Is the mom doing the right thing? Learning the rules or to rule?