Alright, what's next? The day after my last day at work was 31st May, a Thursday, Vesak Day, thus a holiday. Had lunch plans with Suhaila and her fiance, and katak and his wife. VivoCity, The Chicken Rice Shop. At erm... 1 pm, which was push back to erm... 2:30 pm. Heh. I arrived in all my star-karat-ness at 3:30 pm. But I can explain! :P
The whole lunch deal started because I wanted to pass Suhaila her birthday present, and she wanted to return my Take That DVD (yah yah, I'm such a fanboy) but she'd always been so busy. So, we finally got a free day between us and decided to invite whoever else who would come. Thus the pseudo-bloggers' meet. Haha.
I have this weird thing about me (What? Another one?), where when I get a good idea (good, only according to me, of course) for a birthday present, I'd go all the way for it as long as I can afford it. Anyway, Suhaila had been wanting this Ouran High Host Club comic book set for her birthday, and I figured, "What the hell!" Hahhaa. Wasn't easy though. Multiple visits to multiple Popular Bookshops over multiple weeks. Then one day, I saw a pirated Scrabble game set selling for cheap around Raffles Place when I was out for lunch with my (now ex) colleagues. Immediately thought of Suhaila when I saw it. Hahahaha. 2 reasons why : (1) When I bought my (even more) pirated Scrabble set, Suhaila commented on my Haloscan that she should've "kirim-ed" the Scrabble set. (2) I used to play Literati with her until morning some days, and she always kicked my ass!
So yeah, got it for Suhaila as well. Then on that Vesak Day, I woke up in the morning and started burning some stuff for her. (Not to make you feel guilty or anything, Suhaila, but...) 2 DVDs went in the trash within 20 minutes. Arghhhhhhhhhhh, I hate you stupid LG Super-Multi DVD+R/-R/+-_WTF writer! The damned thing has been acting up since forever! Even after I changed it some time ago. Even after I uninstalled and reinstalled Nero. I love my LG Flatron CRT monitor to bits, but I hate my LG DVD writer to pieces. Annoys me to no end.
I also have had problems with my Samsung combo drive, so I don't know what's up with me and CD/DVD writers. We cannot get along. Rarr.
Anyway, I ran out of DVDs, so I had to run out to Causeway Point to get some more. Reached home at about noon, and started burning the DVDs. YAY!!! More coasters!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHH. Frustrated. Then finally, Heroes Season 1 Episodes 1 to 12 was finished burning and data verified successfully. Next, Heroes Season 1 Episodes 13 to 23. Burned successfully! Yay! Things were looking up, finally. At 1 pm, the last DVD of Death Note cartoon episodes and some mp3s were being written at 90% and I SMS-ed Suhaila re-confirming the time and place.
Then data verification failed. Errors at sectors 19295457383 to 2905905389052 whatever whatever. -____________-"
Burned again. Another 10 minutes gone. Failed again. Restarted computer, burned again. I don't know how many coasters I ended up with. I really hate this stupid DVD writer.
The final DVD finally finished burning successfully at about 1:20 pm. I was late. Crap. And it was raining like crazy. Great. Got my stuff, left the house and went in search for a cab. Waited in the rain for a long time. Apparently I chose the best time of day to go look for a cab, when it was time for the cab drivers to change shifts. Wow. Perfect. Hohohoho.
Finally one cab driver pulled up. He had rejected me before a few minutes earlier 'cause he was changing shifts too. But he said, "It's very hard for you to get a taxi at this time." He had drove off before, and then U-turned to pick me up. Yay for kind taxi drivers! :)
By this time, it was already about 2:30 pm. I was slightly drenched (mostly ankles down) and uber late. Reached VivoCity at about 3-ish. Taxi driver dropped me off at the exact place I needed to be, but I didn't recognise the spot 'cause I was feeling disoriented. Walked across the mall, and then back to where I started just to realise, "Oh hey! There's the escalator I need to take!" Woot.
Got to The Chicken Rice Shop, they were all there, food was served. Whoops. But apparently the food had just been served, so I felt slightly less guilty. Hahaha.
After food, they joined me in my crazy plan to go to the PC Show 2007 at Suntec City Mall. Hohoho. Can we say crowded? That word doesn't do the situation justice! Packed-like-sardines, more like! We went around the circumference and stopped at some booths just to get brochures. That was actually my original plan, to check out what's on offer, then return home and ponder the prices. katak and onenix (Suhaila's beau!) bought some stuff, but I was just there trying to absorb all the information being fed to me by giant signboards and miniscule print all over the booths.
Oh by the way, congratulations to katak and freek yahhh! :D
After the circumference, we left. I personally didn't think I could take the squeezing through people anymore. Haha. And after that, we all left for home. :)
I went back to the PC Show 2007 the next day. :D Hahaha.
I had spent the night looking through the brochures and calculating the prices and had some choices. A NEC Versa, an Acer Aspire, a Compaq Presario, etc. Researched the products online and caught up with the latest buzzwords. I'm glad I did 'cause I didn't know there was a Core 2 Duo processor (vs just a Core Duo processor)! Hahaha. I am so backdated cannn. (Shut up Jr. -_-")
The next day was a working day (but not for me - booyah!), a Friday, and I figured if only half the working population was on leave on that day, the crowd in the PC Show still wouldn't be as bad as the day before. And I was right, actually. It was crowded, but there was still breathing room! And places to stand around and mull the prices. You could almost walk a straight line without touching anybody even! Hahaha. :P
I had a plan. I realised I missed out several laptop manufacturers the day before, so I wanted to get their brochures and then sit down somewhere and think some more. Toshiba, LG, Dell, Lenovo, then compared them with what I had already chosen.
By the way, 2 of my friends were supposed to follow me but they both bailed in the end. Thanksss.
I kept coming back to the Acer Aspire 5583WXMi(D), going for S$1798. Its specs included :
The free gifts thrown in were an Acer carrying bag (not listed, but a standard methinks), an Acer headphone + microphone and a choice of either a 120 GB 2.5" external harddisk/250 GB 3.5" external harddisk/extra 2 years warranty (I pity the fool who chose the last option).
And after some calculations done, I went for it. I went to the Acer booth (run by the Challenger guys, I found out, but I didn't know at first), looked at the Acer Aspire 5583WXMi(D), and was approached by one of the sales guy. He asked if I was planning to buy today, the method of payment (a bit of an odd question to me, but I answered anyway) and which model I was thinking of getting. Not in that exact order, I think. I answered yes, Nets, and 5583. The guy said if I buy now, he'd throw in an extra 1 GB of RAM free. Ooh, sweetening the deal. Sounds gooooood. Of course, in the back of my mind, I knew the 1 GB RAM would've already been factored in the cost to begin with. I said yes. Paid. Saw the additional 1 GB RAM get installed, got the whole laptop plus accessories placed in my carrying bag for my convenience, and I was out of there within 10 minutes of payment. Almost felt mafia-like.
I chose the 120 GB 2.5" external harddisk over the 250 GB 3.5" one. I already own a 3.5" ext hdd, so I didn't really need another one. I have bountiful harddisk space on my desktop, so I didn't think an additional 250 GB was all that necessary (although I'm filling up my current harddisk space very fast). Plus I was planning on getting a 2.5" ext hdd anyway, so I thought it was a good choice. A 120 GB 2.5 ext hdd which is uber small, uber portable with a huge harddisk space. I'm sold!
Got home, started up my new laptop, got my (OMG) original Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium up
and running and started installing Microsoft Windows XP on a second partition. Hahaha. Installed
my neccessary software and games (read: WarCraft III - The Frozen Throne), updated my
Windows XP installation, set up my home network, downloaded and installed Vista Boot Pro 3.3. Got
my dual OS boot up and running. :D
Slept a happy man. Hahahha.
Now that I have a laptop that has a Super-Multi DVD+R/-R/+-_WHATEVER writer, I don't need to use the stupid LG one anymore. Woot woot. What a waste of money that had been. That's just one plus point of having a laptop. I've been watching Veronica Mars on my laptop while editing pictures on my desktop, and playing DotA against my brother on my home LAN, amongst other things. Hohoho.
Okay, next blog entry shall be about my mom's birthday dinner at Siam Kitchen in Causeway Point. With pictures, I promise. :)