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.

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.

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?

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.

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

Good luck to you. Obama and USA.

Look at this:

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

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.

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

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.

轉載自人人網

你說，這世界原本多麼乾淨，可是總有你媽那麼一幫狗賴子，擱那兒閒著沒事裝潮人。你說潮人是你媽 一種什麼物種啊？沒事就愛瞎拍拍，一幫窮逼，攢錢半月買了條CK內褲，他巴不得全世界都知道。一會上傳一張夜店照（你媽逼你是不是在夜店負責掃廁所的員 工？），一會上傳一張酒店照（你媽逼你開個房被人爆菊你還炫耀上了？）。

姐今天看了一組相片，差點沒把隔夜飯吐出來！

你在一個破廁所裡拿瓶POLO的破香水外搭一個SONY的破數碼，你想表達個什麼J8？
作為炫耀，你能不能專業點？
姐日了你爹，姐有到處去說咩？
這種破事，你認為能給姐的情史加分咩？

現在連街邊小販背的都是GUCCI，你也背，你也算趕上潮流了。
還有，這是什麼店？如此高端，姐表示消費不起。

修個片修到連你媽都認不出你來，你PS的技術也算是業內翹楚了。

一臉小受樣，被人爆菊你還炫耀上了？

還有人給你送花了？
做鴨子做到你這份上，也是本事。

KTV？如此高端的場所，姐表示消費不起。

仔細一看，你就是個丑逼，姐啥也不說了。
再仔細一看，你還是個窮逼，你要是捨不得粉底錢，姐送你一盒，拜託你把脖子以下的部位也抹一抹。
你要是敢在姐的車後座拍照炫耀個什麼J8，姐一腳把你踹下去！

姑娘，雖然你長的是醜了點，姐還是要勸你兩句。
自虐不是這樣玩的，SM也不是這樣玩的。

出櫃穿成你這樣，你是在扮演日本的暴走族咩？這算不算制服誘惑的一種？

姐已經強調過很多次了，如此高端的店，姐消費不起。
還有，你的紅色SONY-T系列，幾百萬像素的破數碼，出鏡率已經很高了，你能不能懇求你媽再給你買一個？作為一個潮人，你只有一個相機，連姐都替你感到壓力很大。

姐啥也不說了，姐噁心。

現在的嫖客，挑小姐的口味各異，要真有人看上你了，姐也表示能理解。

就你這個身份，作為一個富二代外加金牌鴨子外加潮流界紅人，還喝桶裝純淨水，太樸實了，太低調了。
姐作為一個窮逼，還動不動學人喝咖啡，姐表示壓力很大。
姐下來一定改。

室內裝潢大氣，真是非一般的主流。
對著一面破鏡子，你也能擺出如此高難度的POSE來，真不容易。

姐今天先說到這兒，後續再說。
作為潮人的代表人物，潮人的典型，姐今天只噴你，完了改天把所有裝逼的潮人一起噴，免得你說姐針對你。

你要知道，姐噴你一次也累啊！姐看著你的照片也直犯惡啊！

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